


A Dove in the Rosebox

by KeirMoonrock



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Based on Cirilee’s Octopus’s Garden AU, Birds (lots of em), Brian was a sea witch (and a siren), Brotherly Love, Colonial America, Colonial India, Colonial New York, Dream s I g n s, Ghosts, H.M.S. King William’s Skull, Invented Religion, It’s 1740, John George and Yoko were pirates, Magic, Mental Health Themes, Mention of Kidnapping, Mermaids, Multi, Mystery, Not Anymore, Now he’s dead, Octopus Garden AU, PTSD, Paul’s a siren, Period Typical Attitudes, Period Typical Homophobia, Religious Themes, Ringo’s an octopus man, Self-Mutilation, Shoutout to MonaLuisa, Witchcraft, period typical racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 68
Words: 281,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23314081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeirMoonrock/pseuds/KeirMoonrock
Summary: Twenty years have passed since John Ono Lennon was shot and killed by a deranged vigilante. To commemorate it, his widow, decides to host some of her old crew in New York. But not all is as it seems. The company finds themselves haunted by the spirit of an old friend in the form of a bird. Roses grow on walls in the dead of winter, strawberries grow on the sidewalk, and old memories are relived in extreme detail— but with extreme changes. The crew and their companions find themselves left to their own devices. Who will make it? Who will break? Who’s who in the sea witch Ethelein’s Prophecy? All will be revealed, starting with a dove in the rosebox.
Relationships: George Harrison/Olivia Harrison, John Lennon/Brian Epstein, John Lennon/Paul McCartney, John Lennon/Yoko Ono, Paul McCartney/Linda McCartney, Ringo Starr/Rory Storm
Comments: 50
Kudos: 45





	1. Prologue I: An Excerpt from Ethelein e’Riddidiya’s “Index of Land-Dweller Customs”

**Author's Note:**

> (PLEASE READ thank you)  
> Aliases because it’s from another language:  
> \- Tabanni Macca e’Na’atsji (Paul)  
> \- Ringo Asmalte (Ringo)  
> \- Ethelein e’Riddidiya (Brian)  
> \- Rette Badinatta (Rory)  
> \- Iyera e’Na’atsji (Linda)

_ The following is a passage taken from the end of sea witch Ethelein e’Riddidiya’s  _ “Index of Land-Dweller Customs” _ , after his attempt to read the combined souls of himself, the bard John Lennon, and the siren Tabanni Macca e’Na’atsji, some of his closest companions aboard the H.M.S. King William’s Skull in the summer of 1707. _

Late Peak of The Sun, In The 26th Cycle Of The Moon

I must write swiftly. While by my lonesome this night, I have discovered something rather disturbing. As immoral as it is, I have peered back into my soul-reading of the human Jiaahn and his mate Macca e’Na’atsji. Not only that— the desire to do so was acted upon for the idea of personal gain. 

In the dark hours of the night, I drenched a large piece of glass in their blood, and added a small vial of my own. I then invoked my power, harvested fully under the light of the moon, to find out what was to become of our collective dynamic.

It was at that point that I was overcome by a vision, a prophecy of sorts... In the highest seabed, I saw the moon grow before my eyes. It grew brighter and brighter still... I can still feel its heat against my body. The stars spun wildly around it, and I was then dragged into a dreamlike trance. I heard singing from all directions... A beautiful choir of every voice in the sea. They sang their song over and over again, continuing for hours, until I finally was returned to my senses. When I returned, I found the glass had vanished, the altar cracked in two. 

I believe their song to some kind of message, a prophecy, if you will. They sang the following words:

The stars shine brightly

Yet can not live forever

They must burn out 

Their light becoming faded

In a brilliant and sudden flash

In the same way shall we fall

The nowhere man is but prey to fools

He will be hunted and rivaled

Though several times he may escape the claws of predators

When the world is consumed in cold 

When the course of life runs smoothly like pearls

He will be caught and laid among strawberries and roses

The woman of black, second of her position, will be there

She will be forever stained by that moment, 

Her heart like a lake of glass,

haunted by rye and raven 

The sunflower shall live on 

bearing one heir with the Lady Madras 

He has fought valiantly for that he believed

Rivaling the unjust and misguided

And then shall disappear in a gray haze

Tragedy shall fall upon those of blue, 

One left to the pages of history,

The other to the pitfalls of loneliness

Left only with a memory

Etched in silver 

He who is adorned in gold and gems will for a long time sing,

He will bear many

And harbor a great deal more

History shall not forget him

His young apprentice

Born to the woman of white, first of her position, will grow

It is then that his eyes will be opened

And he will be consumed in the light of a star near its end

A decision he will forever regret

The doll will vanish on an accord not of her own

She will be broken and thrown about 

But will someday be mended

Once she has returned to herself

Under the glow of one thousand stars and the fire of the moon shall the bird tamer cry out to the world of this carnage 

But his cry will be pierced by the pits of drowsiness, to which he has succumbed 

When he returns he will find himself among one thousand flowers, having lost what he had been searching for for so long in the sea of monsters 

It is there, but hidden

Concealed under layers of black and white

Not once, but twice

Though halved

Warped and distorted

But two halves, of course, make one whole

You have thus found your answer.

  
  


I can only fear the worst.

_ The following morning, his body was discovered in the Southern Sea, his index at his side. It was delivered to the King William’s Skull, and is currently in the possession of his close friend, Macca e’Na’atsji. _


	2. Prologue II: I, John

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which John Ono Lennon gets a visit from an old friend.

When John’s eyes opened, he found the street in front of him and his cloak around him. Dark as it was, the moon cast a pale light over the town, illuminating the snow, and whatever else happened to be in its path at the time. Including, for some unknown reason, himself. 

He turned his head to the left, hoping to find some clue as to what drew him out into the cold at such an hour. But there was nothing there. It was rather strange, he thought. It seemed as though the far end of the road and everything along it just disappeared into the night.

And yet, strange as this fever-dream of his was, he felt no sense of dread nor premonition. He felt at peace. Though the world he stood in was dark, and cold and eerie, it was admittedly cozy. Somehow it felt light and warm. He was near certain it wasn’t his own world, as his would just be dark and cold. And that would be that. And some unassuming fellow on horseback would come by and ask him what on Earth he was doing. But nobody came. 

It seemed to him as though he was the only living thing in the world, although the world was confined strictly to his home and the street in front of it.

Or at least, he thought he was. Until he heard a familiar voice call out from his right side.

It spoke softly and in a raspy voice, like a bust made of bronze, and he heard the faintest hint of surprise in its tone. “John?” 

He swallowed once, unable to believe his ears. He didn’t dare to face the man. He wasn’t sure he could after all the time that had passed. His eyes fluttered, and with a great deal of hesitation, he managed to muster up the courage to answer. “...yes?”

The spirit next to John sighed quietly. “It’s good to see you.” He extended his arm towards John, trying to reach out and touch him.

But John grabbed hold of his wrist before he could do so, and it was then that the delirious man saw his face. And his suspicions were confirmed.

He was holding the wrist of a dead man. A scotsman. A painter. A lover. A friend.

His face contorted. “Stuart…”

The Scotsman furrowed his brow and smiled. He gave a quiet nervous laugh before repeating, “It’s good to see thee again, John.” And again he reached out his hand, trying to touch him.

John backed away. “No.” he said resolutely. He faltered, nearly stepping into a lamppost. “No, don’t.”

Stuart nodded wordlessly and focused on John’s face. “Thy countenance hath remained about the same.”

John laughed, overwhelmed by emotion. “You look pale and dead.”

The Scotsman had no good response to this, besides a dry “That would make sense.”

At this John tensed. He frantically looked around. “Am… Have I died?!”

“I- I think not...” Stuart ran a hand through his hair and exhaled. John continued to try and make sure he was, in fact, still alive, pushing up the sleeve of his shirt to feel for a pulse. 

After a short and silent minute, Stuart spoke again. “What business hast thou here, John?”

John became impatient at this. “In case you haven’t noticed, that’s what I’m trying to figure out!” He waved his arms around manically, trying to illustrate the character of the void they seemed to be stuck in together. 

“Easy, love.” Stuart muttered, remembering his old friend’s short temper. “Thou mustn’t stay here forever.”

John tapped his foot rapidly, annoyed. “Well how long have  _ you _ been here?”

The painter drew his eyes towards the sky, speckled with stars like salt on a fine black tablecloth. He hummed a high pitch. “I am afraid I can’t be sure.” He frowned. “Time is a bit like paint, I suppose. After a while it just runs together, and then one can’t be sure what it is.” He laughed at his own joke, though his friend certainly didn’t seem amused.

John crossed his arms, having nothing else to say. He tried to turn around once to get a look at his house, but all he could see was the front of it, as if it lied on a single plain of existence. All the curtains were drawn except on a single window, the one looking into Sean’s bedroom. But he could see nothing inside, even with the moonlight streaking the glass.

Unbeknownst to him, Stuart had turned around with him. He chuckled at the sight of the house and pat John on the back.

“You crazy bastard,” he said. “I am proud of thee.”

John, this time unflinching at the ghost’s touch, cocked his head. “Are you really?”

“Well, thy life has certainly been interesting.” Stuart looked into his eyes. “Hast thou found the life thou hast searched for?”

At this, John’s eyes narrowed. He had no good answer to that. Finally, he replied, “Eventually, I did.” He paused then, looking back on his life. “But not for quite some time…” 

Stuart smiled and hummed contentedly. “Then that is all that matters.” 

The two of them stood on the sidewalk and lifted their heads towards the sky. Against the snow, the stars gleamed a pure bright white. Fair and pale as ivory, the sky like a marble sheet above their little world. 

Stuart stared at John, his face serious and determined. “You’re going home, John.” 

This snapped John back into the semi-real world. “What do you mean?”

Stuart returned his eyes to the sky, uncertain. “I’m not sure.”

John turned with him, watching the stars fade into the ink of the night. “I’m going home.”

He stood there again that next evening, in the very front of his house, with the moonlight shining down on the snow, with the curtains all drawn, with his wife. And just as he took a final step towards the door, he thought he heard a rifle click. 

The shots rang out before he had the time to comprehend what had happened. He felt his weight pressed against the icy path, warmed by what he knew to be blood spilling onto it.

In that moment, bleeding and dazed, he took the time to lift his eyes upwards, towards a marbled sheet above them, black as coal, with white drops like crystals pouring from its surface. It was all he saw before he found himself inside, sprawled out on the rug. And then nothing at all.

John Ono Lennon was, by all accounts and observable facts, dead.


	3. Prologue III: The Difference Between a Boy and a Bird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Julian sees a pigeon in the woods.

Maybe it was the fact that he couldn’t stand the sound of people crying. Maybe it was because he hated being the only one that wasn’t crying. Maybe it was because he couldn’t bear to look at his father’s ashes being tossed into the wind. Maybe it was because the bird was the only thing contrasting the sea of black in front of him. Or maybe he was just cold.

But for whatever reason, Julian couldn’t take his eyes off of the pigeon to his left. It was a sweet little thing, he thought. It was blissfully oblivious, with no knowledge or understanding of the events taking place around it.

It was a little like his half-brother, in a sense. Neither of them could fully grasp the idea of death. Neither of them could comprehend the fact that a man had lived, fallen in and out of love, learned, made mistakes, hurt people, bore children, and was now reduced to a pile of ashes spread across a clearing in the woods. 

But there was a key difference between the boy and the bird. Not that one was winged, or that one bore a beak, whereas the other did not. The difference was that one of them simply did not care any about the funeral in front of its eyes. It made no difference whatsoever to the little pigeon if John was dead or alive. It wasn’t the one that was going to grow up in the shadow of someone that used to be. 

In an abstract sort of way, Julian envied the bird. He knew what it was like to grow up without his father, and he was admittedly spiteful about it. And spite and scorn were certainly not to be paired with grief. It was almost frightening to him, to speculate how the combination would manifest itself. But the bird, as he had already established, didn’t care about John. It couldn’t care less if he was ashes in the woods. In a strange and somewhat shameful sort of way, he longed for the same demeanor. He certainly wouldn’t be so overwhelmed with emotion (and with which ones, he couldn’t say) if he was in possession of such an attitude.

He had started to study the bird, taking particular notice of its shape, careful and round, and its color, a rather refreshing shade of grey in a pool of white snow and black ashes, when he felt something tug at his cloak. 

This startled him, and he reflexively backed away, only to find Sean holding onto the edge of the cloak. He didn’t say anything. In fact, he wasn’t even looking at Julian. But he was holding the torn fabric like it was his very life and soul. A part of him, one larger than he would like to admit, was tempted to pull the boy off of him, but he found himself unable to. He  _ was  _ just a boy, after all, at only five years old. And moreover, he had just lost his father, whom he seemed to care for rather deeply. Not to mention the cold.

And so, for whatever conceivable reason, he allowed Sean to take hold of the cloak, which he pulled close to him. Julian took this opportunity to get a good look at his half-brother. More than anything, he was confused. His eyes were glazed over in a trance-like state, reflecting the shimmering white snow like they were made of black glass. 

Feeling a twinge of guilt for having thought of brushing off the boy, Julian took his hand. It felt awkward, but still in his trance, Sean didn’t object. Julian took a couple of steps to the left.

“Sean,” he croaked out, promptly and quietly clearing his throat. “look.” 

Sean stared at him, untrusting.

Julian motioned his head towards the bird in an attempt to encourage him. “Look.” he repeated. “There’s a bird here.”

Sean caught sight of the bird at last, and slowly let go of the cloak. He looked into its eyes, smooth and black like tar. He found himself, in that moment, unable to keep his gaze from the bird’s eyes, and cautiously, he stepped towards it. It didn’t flinch when he came near, instead, it returned his curiosity and peered back into his eyes. 

Julian followed him towards the creature, feeling just slightly proud for having drawn his attention away from such a painful sight. The boy and the bird were fascinated with one another. It was humblingly beautiful, he thought, to see such a peaceful moment in such a horrible tragedy.

Sean sat down on his knees in the snow to become closer to the bird’s eye level. He drew his head nearer to it. And to his immense surprise, it didn’t frighten nor flinch. It cooed at him very quietly, as though in a small act of comfort.

With eyes still fixed on the bird, he asked Julian, who stood just behind him, “Is he a very nice bird?”

Julian’s voice came out like cotton. “Yes, he is. He’s very nice.”

And for the first time in quite some time, Sean smiled. “Nice bird,” he whispered.


	4. An Afternoon’s Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which George receives a letter.

It was an unprecedented and rather troublesome thing for Dhani to see his father pacing around the study. And yet there he was, in the room he spent such a terrible amount of time in, walking slowly in circles, his hand pressed against his chin.

Dhani peered only slightly into the room, most of it being hidden from view by the heavy sliding door. All was the same inside, as far as he could tell. All except for a single sheet of paper spread out on the desk, laid carefully next to an opened envelope that had been previously sealed with black wax. 

He breathed a quiet sigh of relief, not wanting to disturb his father. It was nothing but a letter that was causing him such strife. But what did it say? 

His first thought was that it was a court summons. Perhaps his father had been called to testify about some unlucky fellow’s tax fraud. It did happen occasionally, and when it did, his father became rather disturbed. He was not a man that could simply be put in charge of deciding another man’s fate. If such a thing could ever be conceived, he was just  _ too _ morally responsible.

The thought that immediately followed was one Dhani found alarming, if nothing else. It was one conceived with relatively little reason, but with grave impact. His second thought was that somehow, his father was hurt. It wasn’t a completely unreasonable notion. Of course, it  _ would  _ be rather difficult for one to seriously injure themselves with a letter alone. But perhaps it wasn’t the letter, but instead, its contents that was the cause of his father’s, and subsequently, his own worry.

A thought of that nature, being so troublesome and all-consuming, was certainly nothing new to the young man. Especially with his father having taken ill for the past few years, and some rather grotesque past events, Dhani was very responsive to the idea of him being in danger. In all truth, he should have been thankful for this specific thought. There had been far,  _ far _ worse. 

He felt uneasy at the recollection of such episodes. Many nights he’d spent by his lonesome, sitting in his bedroom (or wherever else he decided to become entrenched with sudden fear) in hysterics. As he thought of it, he could relive the sensations of such episodes. In the way that only a memory can produce, he could feel himself shaking, he could feel his stomach being pulled inside of him, and the tensing of all his muscles. He saw the tips of his knuckles becoming pale and faded, like a painting through a thousand years’ time, from being pressed so hard against his arms. He heard the incessant drone of the buzzing in his head, like steel being scraped against steel, accompanied always by the sound of his own frantic gasping, his breath coming in and out in short waves.

And then he heard a voice. From inside of the study, his father had stopped pacing. He now stood firmly in the center of the room, next to the little table with the little envelope, unblinking, with his gaze directed squarely at his son. 

“Do you need something?” he asked.

Dhani flushed. “No, no… I saw you pacing around the room, as you were doing, and I merely wondered if something had happened.” He adjusted his collar. “Something bad.”

At this his father chuckled. He brought his hand again to his chin and covered his mouth with it. 

Dhani didn’t like the implication of such a thing. “Something  _ has  _ happened, then?” He clenched his fist. “What was it?”

His father waved his hand dismissively and quickly returned to his pacing. “Oh, don’t worry so. I have simply received an unexpected letter.”

Leaning in the doorway now, Dhani raised an eyebrow. “From whom?”

“Oh,” George smiled, ready to begin what would surely become a very intriguing afternoon, “just a friend of a friend…”

His son, not expecting such an answer, frowned. “Well what was it, then, that caused you to become so… how should I say, focused?”

“Well, son, this letter is just especially interesting.”

“In what sense?”

“In the sense that it includes not only a short message, but a call to action, as well.”

Dhani, now picking up on the fact that his father quite enjoyed keeping him guessing in such a manner, gave a slight smile. “What is it that you are being called to do?”

Again, his father stopped in the middle of the room to look his son in the eyes. He brought his hand to his side. “Have you ever been to New York, Dhani?”

Dhani narrowed his eyes in response. He laughed audibly, off-put by the notion. “I can’t say that I have, no.” And made curious by the question, he asked, “Have you?”

George became serious once more and sighed. “I have. One time.” He reached down to his desk and tapped his fingers on it. “I went for the funeral of a close friend of mine.” He paused. “You were very young; I don’t expect you to remember.”

Dhani frowned slightly. “Oh, I’m awfully sorry…” 

George shook his head. “No, no, no… it’s quite alright.” He paused for a second to trace his finger along the desk, stopping when he reached his inkpot. He sighed then, and with his hands on his hips, he walked towards his son. Once he had reached about a half-foot away from him, he smiled and said, “Well, I’ve been invited by the son of my old friend to New York. She wishes to see us all together one last time before her inevitable and timely death.” 

It was at this very moment that Dhani began to feel conflicted. Taking into consideration the cat-and-mouse type game the two were locked into in deciphering the true meaning of the letter, he realized that such an explanation could not be the full and final story. 

“There’s more, isn’t there?” he asked thoughtfully.

George chuckled, and blinking once, he said, “You’ve learned my ways all too well.” And signaling his son to follow him, he added, “Come with me, please.”

So onward went the two of them into the green and white paneled tea room, adorned with heavy lace curtains and a large, dark, tufted rug, which held upon it a short banyan table . Standing serenely on the center of said desk was a decorative candle-holder, nicknamed Lucilia in the days of Dhani’s youth. 

The pair sat facing each other at the table, each one charged by the other with an air of suspense and great enthusiasm, which was, very thankfully, in sharp contrast to the young man’s earlier musings. Lucilia stood unchanging in the center space between them.

Resting his hands on the table, with one leg crossed squarely over the other, George began to speak. 

“What do you remember of your youth, Dhani?” he asked quietly, as though he was deep in thought. 

Dhani thought for a minute about the question, slowly directing his eyes around the room. “I remember stories.” he said bluntly. “Your stories, to be precise. Stories of pirates and outlaws, mermaids and mutinies, of the bitter old Captain…” He became excited by the memories now flooding back to him. He spoke with his hands, illustrating and exaggerating his words. “I used to sit in this very room, and you would tell stories of such fantastical nature… I still think of them on occasion.”

George gave a hearty laugh. “What do you remember of them?”

“Well, there was the young nobleman, remember? And— and in the dead of night he left for the sea, with the bard… They became pirates on a ship of women, and befriended two young mermen, and a witch in the shape of a bird—” It was here Dhani stopped abruptly, for a fleeting suspicion had crossed the young man’s mind. Feeling his stomach sink and melt into the floorboards, he looked into his father’s eyes. In a whisper, he asked, “You do remember them, don’t you?”

George became sentimental, hearing his son speak so suddenly in such a sad tone. “Of course I remember them,” he reassured. “Now do you remember how the stories ended?”

Dhani brushed his hair from his forehead. Reciting his father’s words, he answered, “The nobleman became a mutineer, and dueled the Captain… he was defeated and sentenced to hang on a noose from the mast, but was mercifully spared when the morning came,” he trailed off, not knowing what else to say. Finally, he lifted his head. “and that was how it ended.”

His father nodded. “Well, then, you’re in for a treat. Today, son, you hear the final chapter.”

Dhani felt his cheeks rising, making him squint. You see, he had found himself in one of those rare and lovely moments in which one can truly not help but smile, for all is well and good. And with a newly-renewed sense of child-like wonder, he gripped the edge of the table, excitedly. “Please,” he said quickly. “do tell it!”

Reminiscing fondly on their old tradition, George leaned back in his chair. 

“It was in the Spring.” he began. “The evening following our young nobleman’s scant escape from the clutches of death, when the crew sat together uneasily and divided for their meager supper, the Captain stood up, and broke the silence. What she said was thi—” He drew his handkerchief from his pocket then, caught in a violent spasm of the lungs. Concerned, Dhani stood.

His father continued to cough and waved his hand, dismissing him. In between his wheezing, he choked, “Sit back down!” Clearing his throat once, and putting away said handkerchief, he added. “I’ve not finished the story.”

After the brief and rather alarming intermission which was becoming so tragically commonplace in the old man’s speech, he carried on. “What she said was this. She said, “For the safety and well-being of myself and my crew, I have taken it on myself, with help from the Co-Captain, to dismantle the ship.”

“A great murmur ran across the table then, and the nobleman turned swiftly to his friend, the pompously titled ‘Co-Captain’. But the young man only stared into his piece of biscuit. Like that was gonna save his soul.

“The King William’s Skull made her last voyage that year, leaving the French swordswomen to which the nobleman had become so fond of behind in the West Indies. From there she went home to England, leaving many on the shore, and then to India.

“Now, they had sailed to India many times before, and having fostered quite an appreciation for the country, the nobleman decided to settle in the town of Madras.”

Dhani’s eyes widened, now suspecting a previously unfathomable ending to his favorite story. George smiled in response.

“After a good couple of years, the man met a lovely woman of Spanish descent, and they married and bore a son. And so the story goes, they live in a white house on a hill there.”

Overwhelmed by this revelation, Dhani put his finger to his temple. His smile still hadn’t faded, no. If anything, it had grown larger. But it wasn’t to last, he knew.

“Well, father,” he said coyly. “it was a very nice story. I hope that he and his family are very happy.”

George cocked an eyebrow decisively. “Dhani, are you happy?”

The young man sighed, still grinning. “As of now, I am.”

His father looked out the window, into the distance. “Then I suppose they are.”

Still consumed by his free-spirited and childish glee, Dhani narrowed his eyes, and in his doubt, asked his father the deciding question. “Did you really do such things, father? Become a pirate, meet mermaids, duel the Captain, and so forth?”

“You didn’t think I came up with all of that off the top of my head now, did you?”

In a moment of both exuberance and disbelief, Dhani began to laugh. He shook his head as he did so, laughing until he could feel his sides ache, and until he could no longer breathe. 

He must have looked like a lunatic, and yet his father paid no heed to his mad laughter. He kept as calm a composure as he could, and in a straight tone of voice, after clearing his throat once, he said, “Dhani, the Captain has sent forth an invitation for me to visit her in New York.”

But Dhani, still trying to grasp the fact that the stories he had cherished for all of his youth, and all the characters described therein, were in fact, real, and not only real, but friends of his father, whom he had always looked up to, paid no mind to his comment.

“Why did you never tell me that?” he asked, still dazed with disbelief. “Do you know at all how much I would have loved to have known that as a chil—”

“Dhani,” George repeated. “I’m going to New York to see the Captain.” 

“You are?” he gasped, and standing up, he rested his hands on the desk. “Well… well that’s wonderful!” he laughed again to himself. “Oh, when you return, you’ll have to tell me everything about it… do you think the others will be there? The other bard, and the French swordswomen? Whatever happened to—”

George, amused by his son’s unwavering curiosity, tried again to get his attention, this time saying his name in a sort of sing-song voice. “Dhani.”

Dhani looked at him promptly, suddenly feeling a pinch of guilt for having interrupted him. 

His father tapped his fingers against the wood, glazed with a white sheen from the blistering sun outside. “Well, it’s just that I am getting rather old, and rather ill, as you know.” He took a deep breath. “And seeing as such, I’d like you to accompany me. It would be good for you, I think. I’m sure some time at sea could take care of your…” he paused, not knowing to phrase his thought. “episodes.”

Dhani, riding the high given to him from each of the afternoon’s revelations, nodded excitedly. “I would be honored to join you.”

He burst into laughter one last time, and then, in a moment of pure and all-consuming joy, nearly tripping on the dark rug beneath him, almost knocking over several houseplants, a marble bust of William Shakespeare, and a portrait of his parent’s wedding, with a broad stroke of his arms opening the doors, he burst into the drawing room.

“I am going on an adventure, mother!” he cried, embracing her (much to her surprise and dismay, might I add). “I am leaving for the New World!”


	5. Memories of a Violet Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kyoko walks through the rain to her mother’s house.

After a dreadfully long and cumbersome journey made no easier by the unyieldingly chatty Madame Braye, whose daughter was due for labor “any day now, with that dreadful Frederick’s child”, along with the sudden and harsh rains that followed any northeastern spring, the stagecoach reached New York, and a wet and tired Kyoko was able to step out of the stagecoach. 

With rainwater sloshing in the soles of her shoes, she trudged down the slick streets. She kept her head down faithfully, trying with all her might not to wet her spectacles. She especially despised the way the water would trickle down the glass and drip onto her face. And it was too much of a hassle to clean them, she thought. There was always the chance of her smudging them, ruining them further, and she could never seem to find the right kind of cloth for the job. 

As she walked, head kept pointed towards the street, she thought of how strange it was that she was back in New York. It wasn’t her first time returning, of course. She had come to visit her mother several years earlier, but even that had felt like a dream to her. 

To walk down the same streets as when she was a little girl, to stroll down the riverbank again in the summer heat, trying to catch a glimpse of the sirens in the water, it had all left her in a state of delirium. A blend of shock to have returned, mixed with nostalgia, or, if you will, déjà vu. 

The feeling she had acquired as she moved through the rain, stepping aside for carriages and fellow passers-by, was similar. She wondered half-heartedly if any of the unlucky souls in the rain with her could see the young girl they used to know in her. 

But she quickly brushed that idea aside. Even if they did, she decided, it wouldn’t be for any the better. Not with the way they had treated her and her family in those long-gone days. 

Her arms sore from holding up the soaking layers of her skirt, she sighed and wondered what the townspeople ever thought happened to her. It had been ages, after all, since they had seen her. And considering she had just up and disappeared whilst her mother and stepfather were being investigated for witchcraft, she figured it was most likely that the people of the town had blamed them for her absence. 

She shuddered at the thought of those days, as memories of painfully long hours in the house by herself, fearing for her mother’s safety, came back to her. 

Then, spurred by such memories, she recalled a dream she had had the other night. It was of that very scene, with her sitting on her mother’s bed. She had been sitting atop the sheets clutching her doll, waiting for the magistrate to finish interrogating her mother and send her home. And as she sat, she could hear the sound of a harpsichord from the other room. This was not by itself unusual, as it seemed as though all John ever did was sit and play the instrument. 

She stroked her doll’s hair, looking into her unchanging and pearly eyes, as the sharp, melodic noise filled the room. It was a song she had heard time and time again, a hopeful kind of tune reminiscent of sunlight streaming into a room on a cool and foggy morning. 

Turning her head away from the doll’s glass eyes, and towards the door, she blinked, intrigued by the song. She swung one leg out from beneath her weight, then another, and silently began to move away from the bed, until she was faced with the door. She could hear the music swell then, and with a cautious hand, she turned the brass knob and pushed. 

The room that greeted her on the other side was barren, devoid of any noise or life. Not a single key moved on the large white harpsichord, nor was anyone around to play it. And beginning to drift from her trance-like state, fading not out of slumber, but into reason, she faltered, alarmed. The floor seemed to tilt underneath her, the walls around her bending and twisting, until suddenly the room and everything in it began to glow a soft purple color.   
  
She marveled at this, lifting her head to take in the strange light. In the violet wonderland, the room melted away, leaving only herself standing on thin air. That is, until a large black and white bird appeared opposite of her.

It stood crooked on its long, stick-like legs, its torso swelling and contracting rapidly with its breath. In the purple light, its eyes gleamed like amethysts, refracting the glow of the world around them. The bird kept its rope-like neck at the same level as its shaking body, as though it was afraid of what it was seeing, until it caught a glimpse of the young girl in front of it.

Still holding her doll, the very young Kyoko gaped at the sight, suddenly feeling the hair on her neck stand erect. 

And without warning, the bird extended its rope-neck to its full height and let out a loud cry, piercing through the space like an axe through wood. The violet light around them grew brighter and more intense, almost to the point of being unbearable, until it burst and the girl found herself back in the room. It was only to last for a second, however, for she awoke immediately after. 

Still drenched, and returning to the reality of rain and the aching feeling in her bones, the young woman shook the thought out of her head, dismissing it as the dream that it was, and approached the door of her mother’s house. Stepping towards it, with a cautious hand, she placed her fist to the wood. 


	6. The Watching Eyes of New York Harbor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Julian arrives in New York.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder:  
> Paul is called Macca in this fic. Mostly because it doesn’t make sense for him to have an English name. 
> 
> Anyways, enjoy!

Plagued by the mundane boredom that came stipulated with a voyage across the sea, Julian laid across two crates of textiles, humming while he made poor use of his knife to carve a separate, wooden knife. 

Although dreadfully disinterested and terribly exhausted, he kept his spirits up. At least according to Mister Cook, the ship would be in New York Harbor by dusk. 

He dragged his good knife across the handle of the second, trying as best he could to smooth it out. A sliver of the wood fell onto his chest with a plunk. Squinting in the dim light of the lantern, he cursed himself for making such a careless mistake. The handle of the knife was now asymmetrical, and nearly as sharp as the tip itself. Annoyed, he dug his heel into the edge of one of his crates. 

He twirled his intact dagger in his hand ever so gently, and was just about to get up to begin his shift of hauling the crates onto the main deck in preparation for arrival when he heard a quick set of footsteps pounding down the stairs. 

A swaying lantern illuminating his face, Wilkes appeared before him, a frenzied look in his eyes. With a crash, having quite literally thrown the lantern onto the floor, he began to rummage through the many crates and trinkets strewn about the lower deck.

Julian, in his confusion, only said, “Captain’s not gonna be pleased about that lantern, y’know.”

Suddenly snapping his head up, the young rigger turned to him. “You got that dagger, don’t ye?”

Julian furrowed his brow and stared at both of the knives in his hands. “Which one you want?”

Wilkes chuckled. “You got two? Even better…”

“What’s going on?” The older man handed him the defective oaken blade. “Is someone hurt?”

The rigger ignored him, choosing instead to critique Julian’s handiwork. “So this is what you’ve been workin’ at all month?” he scoffed. “I woulda finished this ages ago.” 

Flatly, Julian repeated himself. “What’s going on?” 

Wilkes, sweeping aside broken bits of glass and metal from what used to be the lantern with his foot, motioned for him to follow. The two crept up the stairs, narrowing their eyes in the sudden light. 

With his usual spring in his step, Wilkes began. “Well there we was, me and Hitchcock and Tobacco Dan, and we was smokin’ a pipe.” he spoke with his hands, nearly slicing off a piece of Julian’s face with the knife.

“So there we are, smokin’ and chewin’ tobacco and whatnot, and then we start hearing some kinda song…” he laughed. “Almost like something you’d be off about, but worse!”

Julian resisted the urge to smack his palm against the back of the man’s head. “It’s a siren, then?”

Wilkes frowned, hurt. “Aw, I was getting to that…” he motioned his hand off towards the edge the deck. “But see for yourself.” 

And there, perched keenly in the water, trailing next to the ship, was a lone siren, pale-skinned, its scales shimmering in the light, contentedly singing a song. Its head was draped with a thin blue veil, the texture of which one could only describe as being a sort of hard lace, attached to two golden cuffs on its wrists. Julian fought with all his might the desire to draw nearer to it, enchanted by its song.

And there, flailing with a complete lack of grace or even dignity, in the water, was Tobacco Dan, moving in a way that can’t exactly be described as swimming, directly towards the creature.

Wilkes cheered at the sight, flailing his hands behind his shaking head. He then added his voice into the growing menagerie of sailors around them. 

“Who’s gonna get him?” he yelled, excitedly wielding the useless wooden dagger in his hand. 

Julian grew gradually more impatient as he watched the scene. He didn’t want the men to try and kill the poor thing, seeing that it was against his principles, but he certainly didn’t want the ship to lose another man. Not after Reeves came down with scurvy.

He attempted to get a good look at the siren. He tried to see its face, maybe even a bit of its tail, if he was lucky. And he did see a bit, but not much.

It was male, as far as he could tell. Though, one could never really tell with sirens. The men would sometimes cover their chests, whereas the women, to many sailors’ delight, often didn’t. And they would grow their hair out like women. It was all very backwards to the somewhat civilized folk of Great Britain. 

But he felt more or less confident that this particular siren was male. His hair, though shrouded by his veil, seemed dark. Julian ruled that it was either black or very dark brown. That, he supposed, or just a very dark-colored veil.

As for the color of his tail, he wasn’t sure. He almost thought blue, but it was hard to distinguish in the water. The sea, of course, reflected the light in the way only water can, which is to say that it was blinding and, in all truth, quite painful to look at. And the scales on the creature’s tail did the same. 

Suddenly realizing his clear fitness for the situation, having encountered sirens and other sea-folk many times in his life, along with the fact that Tobacco Dan was most certainly about to meet his death, Julian cursed himself once and raised his hand. 

“I can go!” he shouted, trying to pick out any bit of English he could in the crowd. “I know how to speak their language!” 

Now this caught the sailors’ attention; Wilkes’s, in particular. The young rigger crossed his arms, nearly stabbing himself with that blasted knife. 

“Balderdash.” he said bluntly, wincing at his inevitable splinter. Julian saw his mouth moving after this, but was (perhaps fortunately) unable to hear him. 

So, left to his own devices, he picked a piece of rope up off the deck and tied one end snugly to the mast. The other end was thrown off the side of the ship. And with that, he slid down.

He hovered just above the water, keeping a steady foothold on the wood. Shouting at the crew to hush up, he said a silent prayer that he would be able to remember everything Macca had taught him of his native tongue. 

“ _ Teso hayi! _ ” he said, more anxious than he’d care to admit. “You there!”

Just a single moment away from digging his claws into Tobacco Dan’s neck, the siren shut up and looked up, stunned. It was, after all, very unusual and extremely concerning for a human to be able to speak Naiadic. He pointed to himself, confused. “ _ Setta? _ ” he asked. “Me?”

Julian nearly fell into the water then, his colleague having grabbed hold of one of his legs. He swatted him away. “Yes, you! Who else?!”

The siren huffed. It was one thing to be yelled at by a human. It was another thing entirely to be yelled at by a human in Naiadic. But two could play that game, he thought. 

“I can speak English, you know.”

Now  _ this _ was quite a spectacle. The sailors gazed on in wonder, Julian gazed on in astonishment and confusion, and the siren merely crossed his arms, annoyed. Wilkes, in his absurd and incredibly aggravating youthful spirit, screamed like a child. 

“Wait… wait…” Julian nearly let go of the rope in his disbelief. He squinted, trying again to look over the siren. He looked into the merman’s eyes. They were rather peculiar, almost fish-like in a (rather fitting) sense. It was then he realized that he wasn’t facing just any siren. “Macca?” He asked, feeling as though his eyes had betrayed him. 

All of Macca’s former grievances towards the sailor melted away. Instead it was overcome by excitement, along with a sort of nostalgia. He laughed, almost unable to bear it all. “Julian? Is… is it really you?” He smiled, oblivious of the dried blood on his teeth. “Oh, you’ve gotten so big! Look at you! I like your...” he paused, pointing at Julian’s earring. He wasn’t sure what it was called in English. “your shiny!” 

From underneath the water, Macca suddenly felt something poke at his tail. Forgetting to excuse himself, he sank down to face it.

Ringo was there, toying with his necklace. Without even looking at Macca, directing his gaze instead on the shell at the end of the clay, he said, “You’ve been up there an awfully long time. Has something happened?”

Resolutely, Macca took his hand and dragged him to the water’s surface. The octopus-man yelped, alarmed. 

In the meantime, Julian begrudgingly dragged a tattered and still bewildered Tobacco Dan onto the deck. The man didn’t give him so much as a thank you. But Julian was more preoccupied with the mermen in front of him. There were now two of them, Macca, and a second, rather alarmed man that he couldn’t identify. 

“Is that Ringo?” he called out from the side of the ship, trying his luck. 

The second merman drew his head back in surprise, reflexively grabbing onto Macca, who smiled at him encouragingly. “Uh… yes?” He used his other hand to stroke his finger across the shell on his neck, and pointed a single tentacle towards Julian. “And you are…?”

Macca pointed at the sailor, grinning. “ _ Nabuso’o! _ ” he cried. “Look! It’s Julian! Do you see how big he’s gotten?!”

Ringo gave a shy smile and waved to acknowledge the man. Julian waved back, wincing at the pain in his arms. Even with a decent foothold against the ship, holding himself up on the rope was no easy task. He knew he couldn’t hold on much longer.

The two mermen spoke to each other excitedly in their native tongue, although he couldn’t hear what they were saying. 

“Are you going to New York?” he shouted, cupping one hand around his mouth.

Macca snapped back to attention. “Yes! Yes, we are!”

Already climbing his way up the rope, Julian turned his head back to face the two. “Then I shall see you there! I must leave now!”

And though he never did hear their response, he was certain that he would. One way or another. 

  
His Britannic Majesty’s Ship the  _ Lady Thornham  _ crept into New York harbor with the eyes of the moon, just barely peeking above the horizon, watching her. 

It seemed everyone that evening was watching for something. Perhaps a word from a close friend. Perhaps a dream in a violet hue. Perhaps the safe arrival of a ship from the motherland. 

The bird was watching as well. Not for anything in particular—just watching. 

And perched high and mighty on the steeple of a church, it could watch whatever it wanted to. It saw a man stepping onto a shaking wooden dock. It saw him parting ways with two figures in the water. It saw a young man opening his door for him, allowing him inside. 

And it was delighted with what it saw.


	7. Snow on a Sunday Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sean goes on a walk.

The sun slipped quietly into the house’s central room, providing just enough light for Sean to see what he was writing. A single drop of ink splattered onto the table as he held the quill, reading over his note, but it didn’t matter to him. He wasn’t trying to impress anyone with his penmanship. 

Dipping the feather back into the inkpot as quietly as he could, he stood up. He didn’t bother to push in the chair. If he did, it would inevitably drag across the wooden floor, forwaking his brother, and that just wasn’t what he wanted.

He tossed his cloak around him, comforted by its weight and warmth. He then bent down to tie the laces of his boots, and dusting off his breeches, he opened the door. 

Waiting outside was a sheet of white, far deeper than Sean had expected. He supposed it must have snowed while he was sleeping. He sighed. There was nothing he could do about the frosty path but trudge through it. 

In a way, it was beautiful. Being one of the few people awake, he would be the first person to step through the snow, leaving an untainted field of white in front of him. At least he had that to look forward to.

And forward was the only place to go. He felt confident in himself that morning, for whatever reason. When he awoke, he felt a strong and unusual compulsion to immediately leave. To where, he wasn’t sure. But he had left, and in his mind, it had been for the better. 

He reached the end of the path, thankfully with only a small amount of snow seeping through his boots, and stepped into the town square. It was strange for him to see the streets and stalls all deserted, apart from a single man on horseback passing by. He tipped his hat to Sean.

With the horse and its rider drifting behind him, he stopped abruptly in the center of the clearing. He traced a single finger over the snow-capped fountain, its water frozen over. With no knowledge of where he was going, he also had no way of knowing whether or not he was there. It was a tricky thing, really, but he didn’t mind in the least. If he felt called to up and go, he would. There was no use fighting it. 

He turned his head towards the treetops. He was awfully fond of the way the snow laid across the barren branches, but especially across the evergreens. It felt very homey, even if it was freezing outside. 

Through the canopy, he was able to see the top of the ships in the harbor, and feeling the same compulsion he had felt when he awoke, he made his way towards it. 

It had been an awfully long time since he had stood on the docks. He had a memory of his mother taking him once as a young boy, leading him to an old ship. He remembered thinking it was dusty. 

That ship, of course, was the  _ Sgt. Pepper _ , on which his parents had met and fallen in love. In a way, it could be directly correlated to his existence. But he had never felt any connection to the vessel. At least, not in the same sense that his mother or Julian or Kyoko did. And that was a very strange, almost foreign thing to him. Especially with the arrival of his mother’s old crew. It dawned on him suddenly that he would soon be the only person in the company that had never stepped foot on the ship. That bothered him. They all shared something he didn’t.

Lost in thought, he nearly slipped on a patch of ice, reaching for the nearest tree just in time. A chunk of snow slipped off of one of its branches and onto his head. He shuddered, but kept on.

When he finally reached the docks, he was surprised to find he was no longer by his lonesome. Practically buried up to its neck in snow was a pure white bird with eyes as black as ink, and a tiny, rosy beak. It was a dove! 

This greatly excited Sean. It was a rare and wonderful thing for him to see a dove. They had been his favorite bird for as long as he could remember, at least since his father’s funeral.

He had been inconsolable, so he was told. And Julian, taking notice of this, diverted his attention to a little white dove on the ground. Sean thought the bird was very nice, and that belief had stayed with him ever since. Doves, to him, were inherently more tame than other birds.

Not to mention, looking back on his memory of the funeral, it was rather poetic, if not in a disturbing sense. Such an innocent little creature at the funeral of a man killed in such a grotesque manner. It was, in and of itself, an oxymoron. 

He crouched down closer to the bird’s level.

“What on Earth are you doing here, sir?” he asked with a tilt of his head. “You’re going to fall ill in such weather, you know.” 

The bird cooed in response, causing Sean to smile. He had certainly found what he had been looking for. 

“Does it not bother you that you are up to your neck in snow, my good man?”

The bird tilted its head, and understanding that their conversation would only ever be one-sided, he began to brush the snow away from the creature. The cold that enveloped his fingers didn’t bother him.

Finally able to see the bird’s rosy feet, he breathed a sigh of relief. “Feeling better, sir?” 

The bird gave no reply. It just looked at him. 

“Are you not even cold?” he asked quizzically, puzzled by the dove’s lack of any response.

The bird drew its head back, still silent and unmoving. 

“Keep your secrets, then.” Sean stood up, still facing the bird. The two of them contested each other, each not wanting to look away. It was a special moment for both of them, it seemed.

Quietly, and somewhat unnerved, Sean said, “Do take care.” And turning away from the dove, he heard the flap of its wings. It lifted itself into the air and made off, like a rabbit from a thistle, into the west. 

Sean continued to stroll down the snow-capped dock as the sun rose higher in the sky. He stepped carefully through the snow, not wanting to slip again on a patch of ice. As he walked, he watched his boots move through the white mess, trying not to pay attention to the water seeping through the soles of the shoes. 

The further down the dock he strolled, he noticed, the thinner and thinner the snow seemed to become, until eventually there was none left to look at. That was when he heard a voice. 

“You need something?”

He looked up. There, on the dock, was a man leaning against a barrel. The pink edges of his fingers peaked out of his hole-ridden gloves, matching the color of his cheeks. He lit a pipe and repeated himself. “Do you need something, mate, or are you deaf?”

Sean blinked and pushed his spectacles further up on his face. “No, mister.” he replied evenly. “I need nothing. I am merely out for a morning stroll.”

The man looked Sean up and down, suspiciously. “You some kinda witch or something?” 

Sean sighed, defeated. “That is what some people would like to have you think.” And noticing that the man took an instinctive step back, he changed the subject. “Is there a ship coming in?” he asked.

The man blew a ring of smoke from his pipe. “Sure is.” He pointed to a large vessel approaching in the water. “Look at it… all the way from India.” 

This caught Sean’s attention. “Do you know where in India?”

The man scoffed. “You think I know, boy? I’m out here makin’ six shillings a week on this crummy dock. I might as well learn to recognize some flags while I’m at it.” 

“I am dreadfully sorry, sir. I meant you no offense.” 

And trapped in the uncomfortable silence that arises from such tense conversations, Sean squinted to see the flag atop the ship’s mast. Sure enough, it bore a Union Jack in the top left corner, and was striped with lines of red and white— the flag of the British East India Company.

Another man, a young boy of no more than thirteen, turned to the two of them. “It’s from Madras. My brother is returning home on that ship.” He gazed out at the sea. “The  _ Marmaduke _ …” 

Sean was unsure of how to respond to the boy. He clearly held some kind of emotional baggage, and Sean just didn’t know how to deal with that. 

The two dock men kept working, making preparations for the ship’s arrival. Sean stood on the wooden platform, motionless. He watched the waves.

If the ship was arriving from Madras, then it almost certainly carried his mother’s old crewmate Sir Harrison. And if that was to be the case, then Sean may as well have extended his hospitality and shown the old man to her house.

But as the ship came into the harbor, and the dock men and sailors began to unpackage crates of tea and exotic spices, Sean was surprised to see so many passengers stepping onto the dock. There were all sorts of men and women, some well-dressed, some not so much. There was a small group of soldiers, including what he presumed to be the young dock boy’s brother. He stood in the midst of the commotion, trying as hard as he could to spot Sir Harrison, which proved to be more difficult than he had anticipated. He had no idea what he looked like, if he was old or young, bearded or clean-shaven, well-off or of the common folk… it was truly a fruitless endeavor. 

But Sir Harrison recognized him as soon as he stepped down from the ship, and walked swiftly over to greet him.

Sean saw that the man was dead set on him, and as such, figured he had found him. He smiled politely.

George grinned, and upon reaching the young man, set down his trunk. He placed his hands on his hips. “Sean Lennon!” he said in disbelief. “I’ll be damned… You look just like your father!” 

“Good morning, Sir Harrison.” Sean extended his hand, which the man promptly shook. “How was your voyage?”

George pulled his handkerchief out of his coat pocket and coughed into it. “Oh, I was fine. But Dhani, on the other hand…” he gestured to a young man behind them who was vomiting into the sea. “He is not accustomed to sea travel.” 

“Is he a friend of yours?”

This made George laugh. “Not a friend, exactly. He is my son, you see. And I am sorry I did not forewarn you of his arrival, but I have been in ill health as of late, and I figured it would do both of us much good to come here.” 

“Of course, of course.” Sean nodded. “Shall he be alright?”

George turned to check on Dhani, who was now standing. “Oh, yes, he will be fine. Just give him time.” 

Sean pushed his spectacles. “My mother has told me many stories of the two of you.”

“Ah, yes.” George hummed contentedly. “And I have told Dhani much of her.” 

“She says I was in attendance at your wedding. Although, I was far too young to remember…” he paused, then laughed. “She says it was her and my father that discovered your son in a cradle there, and that you had tried to pass him off as the child of—”

George’s eyes bulged. It was at that exact moment that Dhani began towards the two of them, dazed and struggling to carry his trunk. 

Leaning in towards Sean, George warned through clenched teeth, “He does not know that, and if it is alright by you, I would like to keep it that way.” Then, turning around abruptly, he pat his son on the back. “Are you feeling better, boy?” he asked. Dhani nodded wordlessly. 

Off-put by the young man’s feverish condition, Sean offered to carry Dhani’s trunk, to which he agreed. And in wordless solidarity, the three of them left for the house. 

George lit a pipe as they walked. “I take it we are the last to arrive?” he asked.

Sean shifted his weight to try and accommodate the trunk in his arms. “Yes… Kyoko has been here for months. Julian shortly after her, along with Macca and Ringo… and, of course, my mother has always been here.” 

George furrowed his brow. “Kyoko is here?”

Sean nodded, breathing heavily. 

The man bounced his pipe in his hand. “I was… not aware she was still alive.”

“Oh, yes, she is.” he nearly dropped the trunk, and cursed himself for doing so. “Just showed up one day not long ago.” 

“How about that?” George said to no one in particular.

Dhani turned to face his father. “Was she the captain’s daughter?” he asked quietly. “The one who disappeared?”

“Yes. And she has apparently returned.” He looked at Sean. “He has only just discovered that the stories I told him in his youth were all those of my own life. Do not be troubled when he asks such questions.”

Sean laughed. “Being a pirate... now that’s a strange thing to hold back from your children.” 

George laughed as well, albeit slightly suspiciously. He was uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation. “How is your mother, Sean?”

“She is well. But suppose I can not speak for her.” 

“And Julian and Kyoko?”

“They are fine.” Sean squinted. “Although, Julian did not know I left this morning.” 

George cocked an eyebrow. “How did you know to come to the dock, anyways?”

Sean sighed. “I suppose I just… felt that I should. I’m not sure, really. I awoke this morning and just felt I should go out. And I ended up on the dock. It was the strangest thing.”

George gave a serious nod. “Fate, I suppose.” 

“Perhaps.” Although, this was a lie. Sean had never believed in fate or anything of the sort. He was never raised to. Whatever happened, in his mind, just happened.

They came, then, upon the old cream-colored building Sean had called his childhood home. The windows were lined in faded ivory wood, and covered, on the inside, by thick black curtains. 

Sean tilted his head towards George. “Would you mind?”

George, coming to his senses, pointed a finger in the air. And clearing his throat, he knocked on the door. 

It opened with a click. Standing inside of the doorway, smiling as though she was pleased, was Yoko. She looked at George, examining every part of him to see how he had changed. He looked like death, she thought.

But putting aside her judgments, she began to speak. “Nice to see you have made it.” And noticing Dhani, she shifted her gaze. “And you brought company.”

George put his hands on his hips. “Sure have, Captain.” 

Smiling earnestly, she led the three of them inside.


	8. A Shakespearean Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our full cast of characters is reunited for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So you’ll see later on that Kyoko introduces herself as Madame Beckett... this isn’t her real married name, however, as the real Kyoko Cox would like to keep that private. So I just improvised, I know it’s not accurate, but I’m willing to sacrifice accuracy for privacy. Thank you for understanding! -Keir

The center room of the house was modestly, albeit well decorated. An ornate rug was spread across the dark wooden floor, as well as the polished stairway. The walls were printed in patterned grey wallpaper, which sat atop white molding. The whole affair was very black-and-white, an intention held very sincerely by Yoko, and when he had lived in the house, John. 

But that’s not to say that the house evoked a bleak or cold sort of feeling. It was simply an artistic expression. An examination of the contrast, if you will. And watching her guests’ reactions to the strangely decorated house brought a great deal of satisfaction to Yoko. 

George, however, had no reaction, simply for the reason that he had already been in the house. A long time ago, mind you. But he was certainly there.

On the contrary, Dhani never had. But much like his father, he was stoic. Yoko was displeased with this, but she supposed he was like his father in the sense that he could not always appreciate her art. 

He and Sean had taken the liberty of setting the trunks down in the parlor. Kyoko sat there, on the sofa, working diligently at a piece of needlepoint. Upon hearing the trunks heaved onto the floor, she flinched and looked up, resting her hand on her chest. “Oh dear!” she cried, and looking at the two young men, she rolled her head book. “Oh, you scared me…” 

Sean smiled shyly. “I did not mean to. Do forgive me.” And gesturing to Dhani, and then back at Kyoko, he stammered, adding, “This is my sister. She will also be staying here.” 

Kyoko set down her needlework and stood up to curtsy. 

“Dhani Harrison,” Dhani introduced himself. “although you may refer to me merely as Dhani.” He extended his calf and bowed slightly. 

Lifting the sides of her skirt, Kyoko gently bent her knees. “You may call me Madame Beckett.”

The young man grinned. “A pleasure to meet you, madame.” 

“And you as well.” 

Sean drew aside one of the curtains and peered outside. The view was the same as ever; just the brick wall of the neighboring house. “Are you the only one here, Kyoko?”

She turned to face him, placing her arms between her waist and her bosom. “Up until you arrived I was.” She too gazed out the window. “I haven’t seen Julian or the mermaids all day. In fact…” she turned her head, confused. “I thought he would be coming with you.” 

Sean waved his hand. “Oh, plans changed. But I left him a note, so I’m sure he’ll understand.” 

Next to the doorway, the wooden floor creaked. The company drew their attention towards George and Yoko, now standing at the front of the parlor. 

George lifted his pipe towards Kyoko. “Well, if it isn’t the lady of the hour!” he said, enthusiastically. “Like a phoenix from the ash, she’s returned!” 

The woman, in response, curtsied. “Good morning, Sir Harrison.” 

As the two of them, along with Yoko, made polite banter, Dhani ventured towards the harpsichord at the far end of the room. It sat comfortably in the light streaming in from the windows in front of it. He traced his fingers along the glossy surface. 

Turning to Sean, he asked. “Do you play harpsichord?” 

“I do.” The young man nodded.

Dhani hummed in response, and was about to sit down on the sofa, when a knock on the door caught his attention. 

Seemingly unaware of his surroundings, which were, of course, not that of his own home, George decided to answer it. He pulled the door open slightly, but was quickly drawn aback by the weight of a certain octopus-man.

Now Dhani, from his position at the harpsichord, was unable to see this. He only heard the quick speaking of men, their voices blending together in an incoherent mess, along with the familiar sound of his father coughing. He sounded rather startled.

Dhani shifted uncomfortably, and disregarding all expectations of hospitality, pushed aside the madam of the house to get a better look at the scene. To his relief and delight, standing in the doorway were three men, the likes of which he had never seen before.

The first was the most normal of the three, a man in a tattered brown cloak and long black boots, wearing a gold ring on his ear. 

Next to him was a creature with the upper body of a man and the tentacles of an octopus, and in his arms he carried a siren with a blue tail and matching blue veil.

Dhani stroked his head, not sure what to make of it all. Of course he was thrilled to see real mermen up close, especially with the benefit of them not wanting to eat him whole. But he was nonetheless uneasy. He had thought his father was in serious peril. Oh, the headache he had given himself, acting so for such a long time. 

He profusely apologized to the madam of the house and approached the four men. 

They, in the time it had taken Dhani to panic and run to the foyer, ever so rudely pushing through Yoko, had all reacquainted themselves with each other. George, much like Macca and especially like Ringo, was in astonishment over how much Julian had changed from the last time they had seen each other. 

Everyone had changed, of course. Children had grown, their parents had grown— overall, everyone had grown. And there was much for them to all catch up on— matters of their personal lives, if you will. Now, they  _ had _ all seen each other once before since retiring from a life of piracy, but that had stemmed from John’s murder. And seeing that that was the case, they had little time to discuss such frivolous things. They couldn’t when the shadow of death loomed over them. 

So, needless to say, they were very excited to see each other, prompting Ringo to attack George with his embrace.

“Look at you!” he shouted. “Oh, is it Good to see you!”

The sudden weight on his chest sent George into a coughing fit, but if he was choking for a friend, he couldn’t complain. “And you!” he wheezed. “And Macca, of course. Julian, too.” 

In this whole scene, Macca had unfortunately been left dropped on the floor. It never ceased to amaze him how clumsy Ringo could be, even when he had two working arms and eight working legs. 

But from his tragic spot on the rug, he smiled at George. “Lovely to see you.”

Julian muttered a good morning to the man, focusing instead on getting Macca off of the floor. As he squirmed in the man’s arms, and as Ringo and George exchanged unintelligibly happy greetings, the siren pointed to the young man in the corner, excitedly. 

“George!” he gasped. “Is that your babe?” 

This amused George. If there was anything that could make him laugh, it was the mermen’s misuse of the English language. “He is my son,” he chuckled. “but he is no longer a babe.” 

“For better or worse…” Dhani jeered, sending a wave of laughter around the foyer. 

Julian approached him, still holding Macca in his arms. The siren was apologizing profusely for his comment, citing his lack of knowledge regarding the Britannic language. Upon reaching the young man, he extended his hand.

“So sorry about that…” he laughed. “What is your name again?”

Dhani focused his attention not on his question, but instead on his claws. They both fascinated and disturbed him. Sharp enough to pierce human flesh, and stained red with their blood. But yet here they were, being extended to him in a handshake. 

With great caution, he shook the siren’s hand. “Dhani Harrison.” he nodded. “A pleasure to meet you, really.” 

This made Macca smile, although Dhani was no more comforted by his bloodstained fangs. 

Julian cleared his throat once, drawing the younger man’s attention to him. “Nice to meet chya, Dhani.” And not being able to shake his hand, he instead gave him a sincere nod. “I’m Julian.” He paused before adding, “Sean’s brother.” 

Dhani smiled coyly and tilted his head. “You two don’t seem like—”

And predicting the end of the question, Sean approached the man and tapped him on the shoulder. “Different mothers.” He whispered.

Dhani spun around to face him, panicked. His breathing picked up. His eyes ventured up and down and back down the man’s figure wildly. Slowly, he composed himself. Shakily, he muttered, “I see…” 

Julian, shifting uncomfortably with Macca’s weight in his arms, looked at Sean. “So you went for a stroll?” he asked, only the slightest bit suspicious of his whereabouts.

His brother pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Sure did.” he said. “Saw a dove and everything. Had a grand old time, really.” 

Julian hummed. “Where’d ya even go that early?” 

“The dock.” Sean answered. “I didn’t set out intending to go there, however. It just sort of happened.” 

From her seat in the parlor, Kyoko sighed. “Oh, that’s wonderful… I used to walk alongside it as a young girl, you know. In the summertime. The waves would come right up under the wood.” She smiled, reminiscing on her youth. 

“Perhaps we should all take a trip down there.” Yoko suggested from the doorway. “I imagine the ship is still there.”

George placed his hands on his hips. “I suppose it’s only fitting. Brought us all into this blasted city anyways, huh?” 

The collective response of the group was overwhelmingly positive. Hushed excitement spread through the foyer like a fog, preoccupying everyone’s thoughts. Kyoko stood up from her needlepoint, resting it on the sofa. Dhani looked as though he was about to burst at the seams. Ringo, George, and Macca were already exchanging their best and worst memories on the vessel.

Yoko was already tossing her cloak around her shoulders and halfway out the door. And with little to no say in the matter, everyone else just went after her. Although Julian did hand Macca over to his cecaelian companion. He had more than enough arms to carry him in.

“What you must understand, Dhani,” George began as the crowd approached the ship. “is that the  _ Sgt. Pepper  _ is no fine vessel. It never was and it never will be. This is because, first and foremost, it is a pirate ship. Designed for and used by the unsophisticated and uncultured.” he paused for a second, adding promptly, “Or just some mad Liverpudlian bards. Either way, I wouldn’t get your hopes up too high if I were you.” 

But Dhani, buzzing with the anticipation of stepping foot onto an actual pirate ship, a fantasy he had never expected to be fulfilled, was not listening. 

Ringo, instead, responded to his warning, saying. “Oh, do not listen to him. It is a fine ship.” 

George cocked an eyebrow at the octopus-man playfully. “And what do you know of ships?” 

“Enough.” Ringo said in a matter-of-fact sort of tone. “I do live in the sea.” 

Finally, Julian, having taken it upon himself to prepare the vessel, being the most capable of doing so, shouted from the deck that the stairway was coming down. It was always important to warn people, and warn them loudly. He himself had been the near victim of death by falling staircase far too many times. With a steady hand, he lowered the rope, and the wooden set of stairs manifested itself on the dock. 

Sean clapped to be polite. 

Dhani held his breath as he ascended the staircase. If someone had told seven months ago that he would be standing on the deck of the pirate ship from his father’s old stories, he would have passed out then and there. Although, come to think of it, there was still a chance he was about to pass out if he kept holding his breath. Finally, after reaching the ship’s main deck, he took a deep breath. Stunned by what he was seeing, he couldn’t speak. He just walked alongside the edge of the deck. 

Ringo immediately made his way over to the port side of the main deck, his eyes focused on the old wooden tub he had spent such an ungodly amount of time in. Moons and stars above, it still had water in it! He dumped Macca inside of it with a splash. 

Macca, of course, having shared his trauma, was disgusted. Refreshed to be in the water, of course, just disgusted to be back in that tub. It could hardly fit the both of them. Not to mention its unsteadiness. John had somehow come up with the idea to attach wheels to the cursed thing one day, “to help them move around the ship” but they were of two different sizes, leading to a miserable time for everyone. And when it stormed and the ship rocked… he shuddered at the thought. 

“Ringo,” he said, desolate. “why.” 

The octopus-man laughed. “Old time’s sake.” 

Yoko, meanwhile, stood at the forecastle, looking out at the sea. It was a strange and somewhat painful thing to be back on the ship. Much of what she had earned there had been lost, in some way or another. Her crew was spread out in every corner of the world now, and all that remained was the tiny group she had strung together. Although they likely despised her. She had done a lot of things that seemed to anger them back in their heyday. 

Not the least of which was her marrying John. The controversy that it had eventually caused put that of all of her other decisions to shame. She had nearly lost her life as a result of it.

But what good was her narrow escape now, she wondered. John was dead. It didn’t matter what she had done to stay with him in the past— she lost him anyways. Frustrated, she sighed. 

But lost in thought, she had failed to notice George standing next to her. He cleared his throat, causing her to flinch.

“Do you remember our duel?” he asked quietly.

Yoko raised her eyebrows. “Of course. As a matter of fact, I was just thinking about it.” 

The man crossed his arms, shifting his weight to one side. “Oh, how foolish it all seems now.” 

“It pleases me that you finally recognize that.” 

George whistled low, taken aback by her comment. “Do not misconstrue me,” he continued. “I wholeheartedly agree with what I—with what  _ we _ — did. You endangered the lives of your crew.” And softening his expression, his serious demeanor melting like butter, he added, “But it’s so strange to recollect on it all. How strongly we all felt… it’s like something out of a dream.” 

Yoko hesitated. “I suppose you’re right about that.” 

In an attempt to lighten the mood, George asked, “Do you suppose you could still beat me in a sword fight?”

This made his old captain laugh, although she did not shed her defensive demeanor. Locking eyes with him, she replied, “I could best you one million times over if it was in the name of love.” 

Well this certainly was not the response George had expected. He placed a hand to his chin. “Is that so?” 

“It is.” 

His face contorted, and in a bout of youthful energy, he narrowed his eyes and told her, “Prove it, then. There must be some sabers around here.” 

Yoko shut her eyes. “We are far too old to duel each other. Not to mention refined.” 

“Where on earth did you hear of a refined pirate?” 

Finally, the woman caved. “If it is a duel you want,” she spat, smiling, “then it is a duel you will get. But should you seriously maim or, heaven forbid, kill me, I will personally see to it that you are sent home to Madras in a blizzard with no cloak.” 

“I can live with that. And if you maim or kill me, I’ll have Dhani do his worst.” 

“You would never.” She bet.

“Well, you would never kill me.” he then added as an afterthought, “At least, I hope you wouldn’t…” 

Yoko laughed and made her way down the stairs to the lower decks, searching for their sabers.

George ran, or, more accurately, walked with a quick step, to the port side of the main deck towards Dhani.

“Dhani, my boy!” he cried, patting his son on the back. 

Dhani jumped, and George said a quiet apology. 

“Dhani, you’ll never believe what’s happened!” 

The young man lowered his eyebrows. “Is all well?” he asked, quietly.

“Oh, yes, yes. Don’t worry about that.” He crossed his arms. “But the Captain has agreed to duel me, just as we did when we—”

Dhani shook his head, deeply disturbed. “No.” he insisted. “No, you will not be dueling anyone. You are far too weak to duel.”

“Is that supposed to be an insult?” George asked, disgruntled.

“No, Father. It is not. But it is simply fact. You are of ill health, and you know that. You're certainly not in any position to  _ duel _ .” 

George sighed. “Dhani, if I am going to die, I might as well enjoy what little time I have left.” And watching his son’s reaction, he immediately regretted his words.

Dhani narrowed his eyes, becoming, in a sense, almost angry. “You shan’t die!” he said resolutely. “You shan’t die…” 

“Dhani…” George pleaded. “I’m not going to argue with you; not now. But you have to understand—I will duel the captain, and moreover, I’ll walk away unharmed. She wouldn’t really hurt me, Dhani. It’s all just pretend.”

The young man followed his father to the opposite side of the main deck, but still warned, “You don’t know that!” 

And so the two of them walked until they came upon the unholy and unsteady mess that was the old wooden tub, still full of water, and with Macca inside. Ringo sat on the edge of the ship, laughing and talking to him, Julian, and Kyoko.

“Lady and gentlemen!” George greeted. The four of them turned to him. “Get yourselves together. I have challenged Yoko to a duel by sword.” 

Ringo threw his head back, annoyed. “Oh, you can not be serious!”

Dhani tossed his arms into the air. “Thank you!”

Julian put a hand on his hip. “With all due respect, sir, I’m not sure how good of an idea that is. And I say that on behalf of both of you.” 

“We did it before, we can do it again! All will be well.” And without any further dialogue, he pushed the tub towards the center of the deck, cursing John’s name for his poor work on its wheels. It was beyond him how the late man managed to fail so horrendously at the task.

Ringo, Julian, and Kyoko seemed to give a collective sigh and followed him.

At the same time he stopped the tub, Yoko returned from the lower decks with two silver sabers, gleaming in the sunlight. 

“It’s pitch black down there!” she exclaimed. “And dusty, too.” 

Taking the larger of the two swords, George nodded wordlessly. He twirled it in his hand. It was old, certainly, and somewhat dull, but it would get the job done. Besides, it was mutually understood that the two of them wouldn’t  _ really  _ be dueling. Not to hurt one another. 

With a deep breath, George gripped the handle properly. “Ready?” he asked. 

Yoko held out her hand. “Nearly.” And turning in the general direction of the captain’s chamber, she shouted, “Sean! If I die in this duel, be nice and split everything with your sister, won’t you?”

The door to the captain’s chamber flew open. 

“I’m sorry,” said a very bewildered looking Sean, “ _ what _ ?!”

And without even answering him, the bard and the captain pressed their swords to each other.

“Oh dear god!” he yelled, too stunned to move from the dark doorway.

The sun had risen fully now, and its light bounced off of the cold metal of the blades. It illuminated the ship and streamed through its silhouette. The air stilled, along with the company around the two of them, as though it, too, was holding its breath, eager to watch the spectacular battle. All was set perfectly in place for the scene, like that of a play. Each person and object, manmade or natural, was contributing their correct role to the show. George and Yoko, the fighters. Julian, Kyoko, and the mermaids, the reluctant bystanders. And Sean and Dhani, the ill-informed and ill-prepared benefactors. 

But then, in an unprecedented move, like some horrible  _ ad lib _ upon the stage, they, the eight, heard a grotesque and ear-splitting cry from up above. It was as though the heavens themselves were protesting.

Confused and alarmed, they drew their attention to the skies. Pandemonium broke out at the sound, with Dhani swiftly coming to the conclusion that all was not well, as his father had assured, and that, in fact, some kind of horrible and otherworldly doomsday was upon them. 

In the chaos, Sean spotted a small white figure atop the ship’s main mast. He pointed at it, and straining his voice, kept yelling, “There! There!” 

To his shock, it was a dove. The same he had seen earlier, no doubt. It wailed unceasingly, its body contorting and writhing at its own awful drone. It was unnatural and unsightly, the way its neck buckled against its torso, especially paired with its agonizing screech, sharp and excruciating to hear. 

Sean lost his breath at the sight. If ever a bird could scream in pain, he had found it. 

Around him, the company continued to panic as the madness unfolded. The stage that was the deck seemed to spin in circles under them in this Shakespearean turn of events. 

Dhani felt sick to his stomach. Macca shared that sentiment, his pupils shrinking to the size of a hole in bread. 

And suddenly, magnifying all of their greatest fears, in a single swoop, the bird dived towards them, still singing its sickening song. 

Yoko and George dropped their swords, falling to the ground with a clang, and moved promptly out of the creature’s path. 

And then, amongst human and avian wailing, in the midst of the chaos, it sped off towards the town, leaving the ruined drama behind it. 

At first, all was quiet. There was nothing to be said. All that could be heard was the labored breathing of those around the crew, as well as their own beating hearts. 

Macca stabbed through the air with his voice, carrying the same power as his claws ripping into warm human flesh. “What kind of bird was it?” he asked, eyes wild with desperation. With no answer, he let out a string of oceanic curses and yelled again at everyone around him. “What kind of bird did you see?!” 

Sean stammered, his voice barely audible. “A dove.”

Julian followed, speaking slowly. “A pigeon.”

George. “A bluebird.”

Ringo. “A seabird.”

Dhani. “It was green.”

Kyoko. “It was white.” 

Yoko. “I saw a crow.”

Macca was the last to speak, frantically adding, “I saw a blackbird.” He put a hand to his cheek, his head feeling hot and dizzy. He blinked rapidly, his breathing staggered and unnatural. “Dear god…”


	9. On Sje’inn’a’e

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the company learns a lesson in magic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy oh boy you guys get two chapters today! Cause I was gonna make this all one thing but then decided against it...
> 
> Also I’m so sorry for the nightmarish word that is Sje’inn’a’e. But basically it’s pronounced shay-in-ah-ey. Say it fast! Say it slow! How will you say it? I don’t know!

The eight sat uncomfortably in the parlor, no one daring to open their mouth. Silence had prevailed over any rational thought or speech since the bird appeared, and seeing as they were creatures of habit, none of them were willing to break it. Too morbid was their curiosity about the creature not to speak, but too grave the dialogue’s consequences. 

That is, until Ringo turned his head to Macca. “Do you think…” He began in a meek voice, and suddenly becoming the center of everyone’s attention, he cleared his throat. “Do you think it could have been Ethe—”

Macca raised a hand to the man’s face, not looking at him. “Don’t.” he whispered. And with a sigh, he shut his eyes. “I- I’m sorry… I just…” he crossed his arms. “It’s hard to think about.” 

Sean, in a voice both gentle and frantic, asked, “What exactly is _it_?” 

Macca looked up, sympathetic towards the young man. He smoothed his veil, and giving a sad smile, replied, “I’m not sure you’d understand.” 

Sean’s expression dulled, his face going slack. He didn’t need the siren’s pity, for crying out loud. He needed an answer. “I think I’d understand just fine, sir.” 

Macca opened his mouth, then closed it, the universal sign of someone’s cracking. Growing impatient with the man’s antics, the crowd seemed simultaneously to chastise him, demanding, in panic, to hear his theory on the matter. 

Grunting, the siren conceded. “Fine, fine!” he cried, his face growing warm. He looked around the room. “I take it you all remember Ethelein…” he trailed off then, his eyes reaching Dhani and Sean. “Most of you anyways. He was a sea witch, remember?”

The room seemed to mumble and nod in agreement. Ringo felt his stomach drop. He knew where this was going, and he didn’t like it at all. He toyed with the shell on his neck, nervous.

“And sea witches take familiars.” Macca clarified for the two in the room who had never been exposed to oceanic magic. “His was in the form of a bird.” 

George rested his elbow on his knee and his hand on his chin. His brow furrowed. He swallowed once, not sure what to make of the situation. 

Macca stuttered, on the verge of losing control and panicking. “Now—now when a sea witch dies, the traditional belief is that they go on to the three seas of the afterworld…” 

Kyoko clutched the fabric of her skirt. She would have no part in this witchcraft, she thought. For her own sanity and the saving of her soul, she would do well to hop on the next stagecoach to Philadelphia. She would go back home to see her husband. And her children…

“However,” Macca continued, hesitantly. “if a sea witch dies with major unfinished business,” he swallowed. “it’s possible for them to re-enter the sea of time. Or, um, in your terms, the real world.” 

Dhani broke out in a cold sweat. It was a demon, exactly as he had feared. Oh, he should have known. Why did he ever leave India? He could have stayed, could have kept whatever horrible  _ thing  _ that had taken over his soul at bay, and instead he was halfway across the world, making everything even worse. 

“That is what we call a  _ sje’inn’a’e _ . I’m not sure if it has an English version…” 

Julian stared at his boots. “A ghost.”

“Yes.” Macca rolled the new word on his lips. “A ghost.” 

If the situation was not so real and pressing, Yoko would have denounced such a notion, warning Macca to keep his stories of magic and the five seas of reality for another day. But she was certain that this was one story she couldn’t ignore.

“And, as I’m sure most of us remember,” he continued. “he appeared as a different bird to everyone. A blackbird, a seabird, a blue jay… I don’t really have time to get into why. It’s a very advanced sort of magic.”

Sean sat on the sofa, one leg resting on the other. His eyes narrowed. There was no way the man could be serious. 

“And, well… since we all saw a different bird, it must have been him.” Macca paused, his eyes searching for something that wasn’t there. “But what you have to understand is— the longer a  _ sje’inn’a’e _ exists in the sea of time, the more it loses itself.” 

Julian tapped his foot slowly, trying to process the idea. Macca had told him all about magic in the past, but it had never really affected his life. In fact, he had just assumed it was another oceanic myth.

“What do you mean by that?” Julian asked, his voice slow and thick like honey dripping from a jar. 

Macca nodded, acknowledging the question. “Well…” he stammered, unsure of himself. “they can become…” he inhaled. “chaotic. Over time. More like their animal counterparts.” His eyes suddenly fluttering wildly, he placed a hand on his veil. “And- and he’s been dead nearly thirty years! Oh, he must really have gotten out of hand…” 

Dhani, finally having grown impatient, interrupted. “No.” he said. “No, I don’t think that’s it.” 

Everyone in the room turned to him, curious. George, certain of where he was going, called out his name. “Dhani—”

He brushed his father aside. “No, no… It’s my fault.” 

Macca turned his head slightly away from the young man, doubting him.

“I shouldn’t have come here,” he continued. “not when I knew something like this would happen.”

The siren felt a twinge of pity for the young man. If the concept of  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ was confusing for him, who had a decent understanding of magic, then it must have seemed impossible to the human boy. “It’s not your fault,” he reassured. “none of this is your fault.”

Dhani gave the man a stern look and shook his head. “It is!” he insisted. “It is, I promise!” 

Ringo, Macca, and George all tried to comfort him to no avail. Their voices mixed together indistinguishably in a cacophony of reassurances. 

Frustrated, the young man began to talk with his hands, pointing angrily at nothing in particular. “You don’t understand!” he raised his voice. “If you’d only let me speak, then you’d see!” 

The voices died down then, although George crossed his arms, disappointed in his son’s lack of reason. He reminded himself that the young man was not of sound mind at the moment, especially not with the recent happenings.

“Listen,” Dhani urged, his eyes making their way around the parlor. “I have come to the conclusion recently that I am possessed. And it was irresponsible of me to come here with that knowledge and the understanding that I could seriously hurt someone.” 

Sean bulged his eyes, his expression drenched with sarcasm. Not only were they dealing in black magic now, oh no, they were also dealing in possession. All this for a little dove…

George interceded on behalf of his son. “Please,” he said. “you’ll have to forgive him. He hasn’t been of sound mind lately.” 

“Of course not!” Dhani gestured towards his father. “It’s quite difficult to be of sound mind when one’s soul is being held by a demon!” 

The two bickered back and forth, stirring the tension in the room even further. Ringo tried his best to de-escalate the scene, but the father and son were locked in their own heads. Kyoko shook her head, muttering chastisements to herself, and began to collect her needlework. Sean was just sitting, watching the madness in disappointment, and Julian was completely lost. Macca was trying to say something, but his words were drowned out in the chaos. 

Finally, Yoko cleared her throat. “Gentlemen!” she scolded. She raised her voice, her composure reminiscent of her time as captain. “Gentlemen, stand down at once!” 

The occupants of the room shifted their attention towards her.

“Are you all done losing your heads?” she asked, annoyed. They didn’t reply. “Good. Now sit down and let Macca speak, for the love of God!” 

A hush fell over the room like ink spread in water. Yoko huffed and looked at Macca.

Suddenly feeling the weight of the room’s gaze on him, he blinked. “Um, thank you, Yoko!” he tucked his veil back behind his ear. “Erm, what I was saying was that we should figure out what it was that Ethelein never finished.” 

Sean offered his thoughts. “With all due respect sir, it would be rather foolish to immediately assume—”

He was cut off then from a voice opposite his seat in the room. “His prophecy!” Ringo looked up from his necklace. Excited by his revelation, he placed a hand on Macca’s arm. “Macca, it has to be his prophecy!” 

The siren nodded his head in agreement. “That—” he stuttered. “that would make sense, actually...” 

Kyoko stood up abruptly, gathering her needlepoint in her arms. “Mother, I thank you sincerely for your invitation for me to come here, but I am afraid I must be going.” 

Yoko drew her head back. “What? You just got here!” 

“I’ll have no part in this black magic!”

Her mother fell silent, a hurt expression on her face. “Kyoko,” she said quietly. “I hardly ever see you. You can not leave now!” 

Macca placed his hands in the air, trying to calm the women down. “It isn’t black magic, love,” he said gently. “it’s just _normal_ magic!” 

Kyoko stared at him, her face going blank. “There is nothing  _ normal  _ about magic, sir!” 

Julian, trying his best to decode the conversation, as it was rather difficult for him to hear in such pandemonium, attempted to mediate. “Kyoko, what you have to understand is that it  _ is _ normal in their culture.” he said. “It’s about the same as the sciences to them.” 

“Alright, well that doesn’t mean I have to partake in it!”

“Children,” Macca said. “children, could you please let me finish? We can discuss this another time, just,  _ please _ , let me finish.” 

The room again fell silent and tense. 

“Thank you.” he sighed. “Now the prophecy. If we can find it, it could be very helpful.” 

“You have the original, yes?” Ringo piped up. “In his handbook?”

Macca laughed half-heartedly. “I didn’t think to bring it with me…” He turned suddenly to Yoko. “But… John had written it in his book. In English! Do- do you still have it?”

The woman nodded slowly. “I do. It’s upstairs somewhere with all the others.” She paused. “I can’t read it, of course.” 

“Well— who can?” 

Julian sighed. “I suppose I could. Where is it upstairs, exactly?”

Yoko shifted uneasily on the sofa. “In my bedroom drawer… the top drawer. But there are a lot of journals.” she tapped her nails against the wood of the sofa. “And most of them aren’t even from his time on the ship.” 

A collective groan went around the room. It seemed as though the slightest thing would set the company off. 

The wooden floor creaked as Julian stood up. “I suppose I’d better get to work then.”

Macca nodded. “Yes, why don’t you?” 

And as the sound of the young man’s boots against the wood drifted further and further, a small sense of relief filled the room. The sort of relief that comes along with an action, no matter how insignificant, that seeks to resolve a conflict. 

The siren released a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. “We’re getting somewhere.” 


	10. A Dizzying Orbit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kyoko makes her way around the parlor.

It was at about two in the afternoon the next day when Kyoko had gathered all of her things. Carrying her sack of possessions upon her back, she stepped downstairs into the parlor. 

Julian sat inside, resting comfortably on the sofa, a book in his hand. He didn’t look at her, and so she made her way towards the mantle of the fireplace. 

She traced her fingers along the old cream-colored stone, peeling off a layer of ash. Atop the mantle was an assortment of various little trinkets. A framed drawing of a young man with dark eyes rested on the far left, the neighbor to an old ivory figurine of a pig, a relic her mother had brought with her from her homeland. Next to that was a shallow candy tin decorated with images of flowers and vines. She opened it, just out of curiosity. 

As she lifted the lid, the bitter smell of lime peel and dust filled the room. Candied lime peel— a favorite treat of her mother’s. Although it had been sitting in the tin so long, the sugar had melted, forming a single sticky mass of sweets. 

She decided not to eat any. 

Finally, her gaze drifted to the far right of the mantle, upon which stood a pale doll in a yellow dress. Kyoko’s eyes went wide.

“Why, it’s Madame Berkeley!” She spun around quickly to face her stepbrother. “Do you remember Madame Berkeley, Julian?”

Julian did not look up from the pages of his book. “Your old doll.” he said, quietly.

“Yes! Yes, I used to bring her everywhere!” Kyoko’s face fell suddenly, her mind returning to a cold and foggy winter’s night. “Or at least… I tried to.” She gripped her skirt, running the fabric between her fingers. “I forgot to take her when I left for Philadelphia. Oh, I was so upset…” 

The woman felt a knot form in her stomach, a sort of childhood guilt for having left the doll behind. She thought for a second that maybe she should take her back with her. Her hand reached out to touch the doll.

And then a book closed shut behind her, causing her to draw back her hand. She turned around to see Julian looking at her for the first time all afternoon. 

Their eyes met. 

“No one wants you to leave, y’know.” he said bluntly.

Kyoko wrung her hands nervously. “I know that…” she began. “I’m very well aware.” 

Julian didn’t speak.

“But I won’t partake in this witchcraft.” Her voice was firm and cold. Her decision was final. “I’d sooner save my soul than…” she trailed off then, not knowing what to say. And frustrated by that, she sighed.

In the uncomfortable silence nested itself between them like a wall. She sighed and made her way past the piano, her footsteps small and quiet. Reaching the windowsill, she paused. Something was off about it. Something was missing. She turned to Julian. 

“Where have the roses gone?” she asked.

Julian looked at her, confused. “I’m sorry?”

“There used to be roses here.” Kyoko trailed her hand along the seam where the glass met the wood. “They were beautiful…” she explained. “They were black and white, and I remember I used to—”

Something scratched at the window. She paused. 

It continued to scratch, following up on the already dreadful noise of claws against glass with a muffled whine.

The two of them turned ever so slowly to face the glass. There, scraping its talons against the window, was the mad bird. It flapped its wings wildly in the air, trying to steady itself without the use of its legs. It whined again, mimicking the tone of a child denied a piece of candy. 

Kyoko backed away from the creature, frightened. “Get back!” she cried, her voice hoarse and dry. “Get back, you beast!” 

Julian hushed her and stood up steadily from the sofa, creeping towards the window.

His stepsister gasped. “Julian, don’t you dare go near that thing!” 

“I think it wishes to be let inside…”

“Are you mad?!”

He reached the glass at last, the pigeon excited to see him. It chirped once, a contrast to its usual whining and screeching. It almost seemed happy to him. Shaking, he extended his hand towards the latch of the window.

“Julian!” Kyoko was shouting now. “Julian, I swear on my life—”

He lifted the latch and opened the window. Kyoko continued to shout at him, drawing the attention of the other guests, who were quick to rush into the room. Voices shouted back and forth in an unintelligible mayhem. 

The pigeon flew in quietly, perching itself on the inside edge of the window. It cooed softly at Julian, a sort of a thank you for letting it inside. 

And then, drawn to the bizarre and mangled sound of human speech, it turned to see the other patrons of the house. One by one, it sized them up.

An angry lady in black, a frightened man in a red coat… the company was nothing special, it thought. Quite boring, really. 

So it leapt off the windowsill and moved towards the fireplace, enticed by its warmth. And on its journey towards the light, it caught a glimpse of bright yellow, the fabric of a dress for a doll. It perked up, curious, resting its body on top of the mantle. 

The bird inspected the doll, poking its beak at it ever so gently. Working its way up towards its porcelain face, it stared into its unblinking painted eyes. 

The little thing was so strangely enchanted by something so simple. It seemed to have fallen into a trance, its body relaxing and its wings dropping. All was calm for a moment, even amongst the onlookers. 

Cautiously, the bird turned again to face them, this time taking particular notice of the dark-haired woman clutching her skirt. Its eyes grew wide as it met hers, and in a sudden flash, it lifted itself into the air, its head just barely brushing the ceiling. 

The frantic sound of its flapping wings filled the parlor as it darted wildly across space in a dizzying orbit. 

Drowning out all other sounds, and seeping cold, plain dread into the hearts of the guests, it began to speak. 

In a shrill and freakish voice unrecognizable to any of the patrons of the room, it screeched the same phrase on loop.

“Dead girl!” It cried, tossing its body to and fro. “Dead girl! Dead girl! Dead girl!”   


The tin of candies on the mantle fell with a clang as the bird swooped past it. The wind created by its flapping wings blew loose papers, along with the pages of Julian’s book, back and forth. Everything in the creature’s path was being tossed about, including the glass vase on the coffee table. It fell to the floor with a high-pitched crash.

Kyoko screamed, horrified by the sight in front of her. Fear washed over her body, sinking and settling in her stomach like a stone at the bottom of a frozen lake. Whatever the bird was implying, she didn’t like it. 

Suggestions were being shouted every which way around her. Dhani called repeatedly for someone to get a knife and “stab the thing through its heart”, while Yoko scolded her stepson for being such an imbecile. George stood, defensive, and began to chant what sounded like some kind of foreign hymn.

Julian, in a misguided attempt to rid them of the bird, ran through the parlor stabbing his knife into the air. It was, however, in vain, as the creature continued its incessant screeching, and then, just as suddenly as before, swooped towards the ground and flung itself out the window. 

Time stood still in the room, no one daring to make a sound, until in an instant, the gates of hell opened and released all they bore into the parlor. 

Kyoko began to sob, her face turning red and hot. “I won’t have it!” she cried. “I simply won’t have it any longer!” And giving up all she had, including her resistance to gravity, she fell in a hot and weeping heap onto the floor.

Sean stood, awestruck, beginning to reconsider his doubts about the bird’s magical and demonic nature.

Julian, meanwhile, planted his feet firmly into the ground, his body facing the window. He blinked rapidly, trying to process the whole event. Why had he done it, he wondered. What compelled him to allow it inside? 

Carefully, he turned towards the doorway. And confirming his worst fears, the company stood, angry at him. He felt dizzy and guilt-ridden.

Kyoko, still in tears on the floor, looked up, shaking. Dazed and frustrated, she stood up. “What have you done?!” she screeched. 

Sean tried to scold her, but was, of course, drowned out by her.

“What on Earth have you done?!”

Julian froze, not knowing how to respond. His body became heavy and tired under her scrutiny, and meekly, he reached for his book on the sofa. Barely audible, he said, “I should go.” 

And moving swiftly past the company, he went out the door.

Sean breathed a long sigh. “Oh dear.”


	11. Demons, Devils, and Charles II of England

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Julian and Sean discuss the young Mister Harrison.

_ 13th of January, 1707 _

_ If there is a God, then He certainly did not count on this.  _

_ For today, my friend, on the 13th of January, in the year of our lord 1707, her majesty Queen Anne of England—or, rather, Queen Anne of Great Britain—has requested the presence of our crew at a ball of hers in February! Yes, pirates at Her Majesty’s ball. Will wonders never cease? _

_ So the invitation states, rumors of our ship and our, “mystical companions”, whom I can only assume to be the buggers themselves, Ringo and Macca, have reached London, much to the people’s excitement. And our attendance at the ball is most anticipated.  _

_ I still am not fully convinced of the letter’s authenticity, although George believes it to be real, citing the seal on the envelope. (And I suppose he would know what the royal seal looks like, that bastard viscount) I truly do hope he goes, if only for my immense entertainment at the sight of his pain and discomfort.  _

_ The Captain, similarly, is rather confused by the idea of a ball. I suppose such festivities do not occur in her homeland. It is something we discuss frequently, actually. Her homeland, that is. The way she describes it, no festivities must occur there.  _

_ Surely if we are to attend, she will also be miserable. I simply can not picture her with combed hair and a full dress. Moreover, I can not picture her face free of dirt and grime!  _

_ Of course, I think it would be a rather titillating thing… But dear God, whose idea was it to invite us? _

Julian had to squint to read the journal in the dim candlelight. His eyesight had never necessarily been good, but coupled with the dim light from the candle on the desk, he was about as good as a dead man in a barrel.

He sighed, rubbing his eyes. He did not care to hear about royal balls or the Captain or Queen Anne. All he needed was the sea witch’s blasted prophecy. 

Not to mention the hypocrisy of that particular entry. He would have been just a boy at the time it was written, of course, and while he and his mother were living alone and scraping by in Britain, his father was off, quite literally attending balls with the Queen. He would almost laugh at the irony of it all, if he weren’t so bitter about it.

The door creaked and heaved open behind him, and a sudden voice halted his train of thought. “Are you alright?” Sean asked, shutting the heavy door and removing his cloak.

Julian kept his eyes on the pages of the journal in an attempt to make their conversation as brief as possible. With the journal, his poor eyesight, and his overall discontent at the time, the last thing he needed was a drawn out dialogue with the man. “Yes, I’m fine.” 

He heard his younger brother cross the room to stoke the fire. There, swiping ash away from his face, Sean sighed. “Everyone has been asking where you are.” 

Julian directed his eyes to the floor, gently pressing the pages of the journal between their cover. He swiveled around in the chair so that he could face his Sean, his arm resting across the top. “Well, I’m right here.”

The young man turned to face him, a sympathetic look in his eyes. After a brief moment of hesitation, in which he bit his lip and cast his eyes toward his boots, he asked, “You aren’t still thinking about what happened with Kyoko, are you?”

Julian chuckled insincerely, a shady attempt to dodge the question. “You know me better than I thought.” 

“She isn’t angry with you, you know. Quite the opposi—”

“I know that!” He was surprised how defensive he sounded, a tinge of fear wavering in his voice, as though he was a child again. God, he hated that sound.

“I don’t think that you do.” Sean put a hand on his hip, untrusting.

Neither of them spoke, the air around them growing thick. For a minute, the only sound to be heard was the burning of wood in the fireplace, coupled with the freezing wind outside brushing the windows. 

“My mother and Macca convinced her to stay somehow.” Sean finally muttered. “So you needn’t worry about her leaving anytime soon.” 

“That’s a relief.” Julian gazed into the fire. His face fell, his features softening in the light. “Is she well?”

Sean put his hands together. “I wouldn’t say that, exactly. She’s… shaken, to put it mildly. Been on for two days about demons and devils, all manner of things.”

Julian nodded understandingly. “Sounds like her. Just be patient with her.” He crossed his arms and furrowed his brow, lifting his eyes to meet Sean’s. Coyly, and yet with a stoic demeanor, he asked, “Do you believe in demons, Sean?”

This made his brother laugh. “Personally, no. Although I’m sure there are  _ some people  _ in this town that would like to believe I am one.” 

The mood having lightened, and the air having stilled outside, he walked over towards the desk, leaning his weight against the wall.

“Dhani seems to be of the same mindset as Kyoko.” he explained. “In regards to the demons and devils and whatnots. Although he believes  _ he’s  _ the demon.”

This made Julian take pause. For the son of such a straight-laced man, the young Mister Harrison was extremely odd. Several times since his arrival, Julian had spotted him mumbling troublesome things to himself, often chastisements for his sins. But what those sins were, Julian hadn’t a clue.

Sean continued. “He talked my ear off about it earlier yesterday. Just went on and on for hours about his demons and spells of insanity. I just had to smile and nod through the whole thing.” 

Curiosity finally overtook Julian. He had to ask. “Is he well in the head?” 

“That’s the thing.” Sean pulled up a chair, The legs screeching across the wood. “After I had had my fill of nonsense for the day, and finally left the conversation, his father approached me. He apologized on Dhani’s behalf for the whole thing. Says he’s been like this a while. I’m not sure if he was dropped on his head as a child or something, but, yes, he’s a tad bit mad.” 

Julian hummed, tapping his fingers on the leather cover of the journal, watching as his fingers trailed long black shadows across the desk and curtains. He hummed to himself. “I think I know why that is…”

Sean cocked an eyebrow.

Julian smiled. In a playful tone of voice, he began, “You know the story of Sir and Madame Harrison’s wedding, don’t you?”

Sean chuckled as memories of his mother’s old stories of the event filled his head. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to be much more specific.” 

“About how your mother left to wander the house, and ended up finding Dhani in a cradle.” 

“Oh, of course.” 

“Naturally,” Julian nodded and pointed his finger. “like most of us here, he is a bastard. But make no mistake, I don’t believe it to be the cause of his madness.” The man laughed to himself, adding as an afterthought, “If that were the case, then I suppose I’d be the same.” 

Sean rested his arm on the desk. “Go on…” he said slowly.

“That,” Julian explained. “can be attributed to his lineage.” 

Sean blanked. “Something I would know nothing about.” 

Julian smirked, having gotten the response. “Or do you?” He leaned back in his chair. “Tell me, how familiar are you with British history?” 

Sean’s face contorted in confusion, unsure and slightly frightened of where the story was headed. “About as familiar as anyone else, I suppose.” 

“So then you know of Charles II?” 

“Of course.” 

“And what was good old Charlie Two known for?” 

Sean squinted. “Being the son of Charles I?”

Julian nearly fell out of his chair in mock surprise. He drew his head back, scoffing. “Are you telling me you don’t know about—” He threw his hands up, and in an only slightly accusatory tone, asked, “Do children these days really not know of Charles II?”

“Julian, I’m not sure how you want me to respond.” 

Julian, continuing his hyperbolic rant, went on. “Back when I was a boy, all we spoke of was Charles II!” He shrugged. “Him, of course, and which one of us would contract smallpox first.” 

Sean laughed dryly, fully understanding that childhood smallpox was nothing comedic. 

“Anywho,” Julian carried on. “as anyone over the age of thirty could tell you, Charles II is known for two things. The first is replacing Cromwell,” here he paused for dramatic effect. “and the second is his many illegitimate children, all of whom he declared nobles. Earls and dukes and counts… all sorts of titles.” 

Sean raised his eyebrows.

“And Sir Harrison,” he pat the journal on the desk, appreciative that it had taught him something useful. “as reading these have taught me, is the son of the first Earl of Liverpool. Who, like many earls of his time, was directly and illegitimately descended from the king.”

“So the reason Dhani’s mad is because he is a relative of Charles II?” Sean asked.

Julian looked him dead in the eyes. “Yes!” he threw a single hand in the air. “Have you not listened to anything I just told you? His family’s somehow more screwed over than ours!”

The younger man shifted uncomfortably in his seat, forcing a laugh. “You know,” he blinked. “I don’t think Dhani knows he is illegitimate. I tried to reference it in my banter with his father on the dock, and he immediately shut me down as the boy approached.” 

Julian laughed. “Well, then, I guess the less he knows the better.”

“I suppose so.” 

And having nothing else to say, and being awfully tired from his long day of staying in the house trying to make out his father’s handwriting, Julian rubbed his eyes. “Perhaps I should be heading to bed.”

Sean nodded. “Certainly.” And biting his cheek, he added, “But do say you’ll come out and see everyone soon.” 

Julian sighed, immediately resolving to sleep on the matter. “In time, Sean. In time.”

Sean smiled, and after dragging his chair back to its rightful place by his table, he made his way upstairs, content.

Julian blew out the candle, leaving only him and the fire. 

What was important to note was that Julian Lennon had never been one to sleep soundly. For as long as he could remember, he would lie awake in his room, tossing and turning to and fro until after a hard-fought battle, he would succumb to drowsiness. 

But even when he managed to fall asleep, he would often find himself the victim of nightmares. He would dream of all sorts of things, people, real and fictional, mad dogs, scenes from his childhood… but the common denominator was that he would always wake up safe in his room, or at least, the same room he had fallen asleep in.

But on this particular night, he opened his eyes not to darkness, or his familiar barren bedroom, or even the neatly decorated guest room of his younger brother.

He opened his eyes, and he found himself to be much younger, in a white-tiled kitchen, sitting at a table. 

And opposite him was his dead father.

  
  
  
  
  



	12. The Dead Man’s Mistake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Julian dreams of his father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Please note that Keir Moonrock does not condone nor endorse the use of the phrase “oriental whore”. Do bare in mind that the fic takes place in the eighteenth century, and society was not the same as it is today. This logic also applies to discussions of LGBT+ issues and mental health. I have added the appropriate tags to recognize this. Thank you, and please enjoy the show.*

The dead man spoke harshly, his features hollow and jagged. “Do you really?” he asked, an all too familiar annoyance in his eyes.

Julian was taken aback by the question. His hands shook under the table, his mouth perpetually open in a slight gasp.

His cheeks became hot, his head suddenly cluttered and dizzy, a high pitched tune ringing in his ear. 

But the dead man paid no mind. As though he had gotten an answer from the boy, he continued. “I don’t think it’s fair of you to say that when you’ve only just met him.”

Julian furrowed his brow, turning around slowly to examine the room. He was in Yoko’s house, her kitchen to be exact. But it didn’t seem right. It felt… it felt off. Too clean. Too bright. It wasn’t the same. 

He knew this place. He knew why he was here. He knew this exact conversation. He had lived it before, but that was so many years ago…

“How can you say that? He’s a bloody child, y’know!”

Oh, heavens. It suddenly hit Julian what, or rather, _who_ they were talking about. He directed his sights into the parlor doorway. The door was cracked open, giving him just enough of a view into the room.

“What are you talking about?” the dead man yelled, his voice high-pitched and sharp. “Have you gone bloody mad?”

The light filtered in through the parlor window— the big one by the piano. On the windowsill, he spotted a long plant box made of dark wood and bursting with soft black and white life. He lost his breath. 

“It is beyond me why I must constantly remind you,” the corpse spat. “but I am not perfect—”

Julian, barely paying attention to the man’s shouting, muttered what he knew had been his response. “That much is clear.”

Again, the dead man continued, growing more impatient by the second. “I made mistakes, alright? I made a lot of mistakes, and—”

Julian shut his eyes, the memory of the scene ripping open in his mind like a fresh wound. In an angry whisper, he interrupted. “Mistakes like me.”

And for the first time in the conversation, or more accurately, the argument, the deceased had nothing to say. That, Julian remembered, had hurt like the flames of hell. His father had said nothing because he knew that the claim was, beyond the shadow of a doubt, true. 

The young man let himself fall into the scene. It was early in November, 1718. And although it was not yet winter, a thin sheet of frost blanketed the earth outside. 

For the first time, he was in New York, on what would be his first visit to his father in many years. Consequently, it would also be his last. 

In all honesty, it was a trip doomed from the start. But sitting in the kitchen, he couldn’t remember how far along it was. Near the beginning, perhaps. 

His head swelling at the thought, he redirected his gaze to the plant box.

Held in its deep brown wood was a grayscale array of roses, in hues of bright whites and ink blacks, the very ones Kyoko had mooned about the other day. He furrowed his brow.

“They were always there, weren’t they?” The young man asked no one in particular.

The dead man in front of him huffed. In a hushed, hoarse voice, he went on. “Your mother put you up to this, didn’t she?” It wasn’t so much of a question as it was an accusation.

Julian sighed and shut up, choosing instead to focus on the roses. He couldn’t believe he didn’t remember them, but they  _ had _ always been in the house, hadn’t they?

He let out a deep breath. The flowers gave him a kind of grounding in the scene, even if he was beyond miserable at the table. 

He let his mind wander. If him and John were down here, he thought, then Yoko had gone upstairs. She was never one to intervene in their arguments, and rightfully so. It just wasn’t her place.

But that meant—

“I should have expected her to pull something like this. Don’t know why I didn’t.” 

Oh god.

Julian kept his eyes locked on the rosebox. If his mind didn’t fail him, then he’d be here any second.

“I think you’d be saying otherwise if you had put up with her the way I did for so many years.” 

The young man’s throat went dry. He already knew what was about to happen, but his mind craved confirmation. He needed a sign. 

The dead man scoffed, indignant. But as Julian darted his eyes to see his face, he swore he caught a sliver of pain in his eyes. Some sort of regret. That was new.

“I did what I had to!” he yelled, his voice desperate. 

His son stared at the grain of the wooden table. As usual, he had no response. There was no point in saying anything. He had already lived this memory, said his piece, and went home. And whether he spoke or not, John would continue. 

“I wasn’t in a good place! Can you at least sympathize with that?”

The sound of small footsteps rang out in the distance. Julian looked up, frantic, and peered into the parlor.

“Maybe it’s not!” the corpse cried, losing any semblance of collectedness. “Maybe there is none!” And with that, he slammed his fist on the table, causing it to shake.

Julian held his breath as the small boy approached the rosebox, reaching out his hand to touch the flowers. His face fell.

At the sound, the boy turned towards the kitchen, alarmed. It was then that Julian could finally see his face, their eyes meeting in the moment. 

Standing by the rosebox, staring seemingly into his soul with frightened eyes, was the subject of the argument, the man of the hour, the victim of his unnecessary teenage hatred, the (legitimate) son of two pirates— his half-brother, Sean.

Seeing him, especially in this dream, caused a wave of guilt to pass over Julian. He tried, in the dream, to explain he was wrong. He tried to explain he no longer thought poorly of him. He tried to explain he was just being stupid. But it was all in vain. 

The boy, much like his father, didn’t seem to hear him, and instead backed away from the window, afraid of the two loud voices yelling back and forth at one another.

Julian’s eyes trailed him for as long as he could catch a glimpse of him, feeling utterly disgusted with his former self as the boy disappeared behind the half-open door.

He drew a shaky breath. It had been at this point in the argument that he had stormed out of the room, being fed up with his father and all his mistakes. He had gone upstairs to the guest room and promptly began to pack his things. Just two days later, he was on a ship back to England. His trip had ended three days early, if his memory did not fail him, mostly due to his sheer anger towards his father and his family. 

He had brought that anger home with him and held onto it for a good two years. His eyes went wide as a whole new kind of guilt manifested itself in him. One for something he would never get the chance to correct.

The dead man sighed in the background, unable to process anything more, and rested his head on the table, quiet as bones.

Julian felt simultaneously hot and cold at the sight. He had been angry with his father the last time he ever saw him. 

Unable to bear the weight of his guilt, he stood up from his chair, his eyes bouncing around the room like a madman, searching for a way out. A way to wake up. 

He wasn’t sure what would happen if he just ran outside… this was nothing like any other dream he’d had before, after all. And he didn’t want to take his chances.

Maybe if he tried to sleep in the dream, he would wake up. But he was too sad and angry and guilty to sleep, his eyes dripping with emotion. 

So he fixed his eyes on the center of the kitchen, the oven. Now, he was, by no means, a masochist. He did not mean to escape the nightmare by jumping into the oven and setting himself ablaze in the hope that he would awake rightly energized in the morning.

Mostly because, well, there was no oven. 

In its usual place was a large old door, colored with peeling violet paint. Its brass knob was dusty and dull, like rain on a bleak gray afternoon. 

It was very odd, he thought. Everything else in the dream had been so surreal. The brightness of the kitchen, the monochrome roses in the parlor, even the way his father raised his eyebrows when he spoke. But the door stuck out like a sore thumb. 

He took a cautious step towards it. If he wanted an escape, then this was as good as any. Hell, it was right in front of him!

He figured he’d take his chances. 

And so he stepped slowly across the creaking wood towards the door, the sound of his footsteps ringing far too loudly in his ear. As he neared the rainy-day knob, he extended a shaking, sweating hand to turn it.

But right as his fingers reached the cool metal, he stopped. His father, however real he was, was still behind him. Maybe…

Julian turned to look back just once, his head full of a million things to say. The sheer multitude of words was too much for him to handle, of course, and deciding to keep things short and sweet, he settled on the one thing he had never been able to tell the man, even if he wouldn’t truly hear him.

“Goodbye.”

And with that, he curled his fingers around the dull brass doorknob and turned it. With some effort, the door being heavier than expected, he pushed it open, sending a cloud of dust swirling into the air.

He choked on it, trying his best to wave it away from him as he stepped into the strange, soft turf beneath him. 

As the dust cleared, he heard the door shut behind him with a click. Turning around, he was amazed to discover that it had disappeared entirely. Cause why wouldn’t it?

It was then, in the absence of the door, that he was able to appreciate the world around him. 

He was in a field of fiery orange flowers as high as his waist, seemingly extending for miles. The sky above him was a vibrant green, dotted all over by small white dots blowing in the wind. Snowflakes…

He let out a deep breath in the field, letting his mind and body wander through the expanse of orange. 

It was certainly better than his father’s kitchen, that’s for sure. Even with the snow, the world seemed inviting, almost magical. A pleasant warmth ran through his veins.

Not a sound could be heard in the space, not even the wind. All was quiet, and all was calm. It was a welcome change from the one-sided shouting match he had just witnessed.

Captivated by the strange world’s tranquility, Julian sat down, the heel of his boots digging into the flowers. He let out a quiet breath, allowing himself to, just for once, let his guard down.

With no sun in the sky, he supposed it was the flowers that kept him so warm. With him on the ground, they reached up to his forehead, surrounding him on all sides. He plucked one off to examine it.

It was vibrant above all else. Its petals shone like the sun, with a color as deep and rich as fresh honey. Why, he wouldn’t be surprised if the blossom was made of fire itself. 

And he admired the way the flower folded in on itself, as though it was humble enough not to show its full beauty. It covered itself with prudence, aware of its majesty, but unwilling to reveal its full self to him. 

He hummed, content to let himself just enjoy the moment. He laid on his back in the flowers, eyes focused on the olive skies. 

And while flat on his back, he found himself in a trance, gazing into the unchanging, unflinching green abyss above him. There were no stars, no clouds, no smoke. Only color, as far as the eye could see.

Until a gray figure zoomed into his line of sight, pausing when it flew above him.

Julian tried to squint to see it, but it was too far for him to tell what it was.

There was, however, no mistaking the thing once he heard it. Though he usually had quite a bit of trouble hearing, the bird’s whine was loud enough to wake the dead. 

It screamed like a child, and as the skies turned over from the olive green he was familiar with to a dusty violet the same color as the door, it flew off, leaving in a single vertical line towards the heavens. 

But the presence of the immature little pigeon was not what troubled him, per say. 

He was more concerned with the fiery flowers around him, in an instant, at a rate impossible in nature, they began to wilt, turning dark and dry. And as they sunk lower to the soil, he began to feel the vines poke him.

They seemed to spring from the ground. Thick, thorny, vines that grabbed hold of him just slowly enough that he could register that they were coming, but quick enough for him not to break free. They started at his feet, wrapping tightly around his boots like a snake to its prey. And like a snake, they coiled up further and further, until they abruptly stopped upon reaching his thighs.

He tried desperately to pull himself back with his arms, but, of course, was stopped when a separate set of vines latched onto his hands. The thorns sank deep into his skin, causing him to writhe in pain in the field. 

As they made their way up his arms, stopping at his shoulders, he finally cursed in pain, trapped under the weight of the vines.

That was when they grabbed hold of his chest. In a sudden, swift motion, they spread around his torso and squeezed him. He cried out in agony as the sets on his arms and legs followed suit, constricting around him until his fingers were white as ivory and his vision blurred. 

He screamed all manner of curses at the bird, who had most certainly caused the vines to appear, and having nothing else to move, thrashed his head wildly.

Then, with a sudden pull, the wilted flowers fell away into space, and Julian was dragged into the cold unknown. 

The vines at last released him, and having regained the full use of his lungs, he breathed in deeply. He was back in the real world.

But no air entered his body. In its place was icy, murky water. He choked, only inhaling more of the water in the process.

Fear took hold of him. He was going to drown.

Without an explanation, he became very angry. At what, he wasn’t sure. At his father. At the bird. At himself. 

If they wanted him to drown, he thought, fighting the cold, then he was going to fight tooth and nail to make it to shore.

As he tried with all his strength to reach the surface, flailing like a mad dog caught in a storm, he replayed an old memory in his head. A memory of a long-gone conversation.

_ I hate him. _

_ Do you really? _

_ I do. I hate him with every bone in my body. _

_ I don’t think it’s fair of you to say that when you’ve only just met him. _

_ Well, I think he’s horrible. And I’m sorry you disagree. I think he’s a horrible child born to horrible parents, and I sincerely hope that he’ll be killed off by the pox. Preferably soon. _

_ How can you say that?! He’s a bloody child, y’know! _

_ Well  _ I _ was just a bloody child, too, wasn’t I? _

_ What are you talking about? Have you gone mad? _

_ Might as well have, with you beatin’ me and all. _

_ It is beyond me why I must constantly remind you, but I am not, nor have I ever claimed to be, perfect— _

_ That much is clear. _

_ I made mistakes, alright? I made a lot of mistakes, and— _

_ Mistakes like me. _

_ …Your mother put you up to this, didn’t she? _

_ No. _

_ I should have expected her to pull something like this. Don’t know why I didn’t. _

_ You might have your quarrels with her, but I know for a fact that she wouldn’t convince me to hate your son. Quite the opposite, really. _

_ I think you’d be saying otherwise if you had put up with her the way I did for so many years. _

_ Put up with her? Really? You left us to go be a pirate, have intimate relations with a merman, and then marry an oriental whore. When the hell did you “put up with her” during all that? _

_ I did what I had to! _

_ Yeah, you just  _ had  _ to abandon your wife and son, then act like a prick to them, and then run off with another woman.  _

_ I wasn’t in a good place! Can you at least sympathize with that? _

_ That’s no excuse. _

_ Maybe it’s not! Maybe there is none! _

  
  


By the time he reached the riverbank, Julian was trembling from both the cold and exhaustion. His body was weak, and he fell limp against the Earth as he violently choked up the water he had swallowed. Overall, he was wet, tired, miserable, and dangerously hypothermic.

But he had survived.


	13. Ivory Logic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sean gets a total of three visitors.

The flint struck against the steel several times before the flame appeared. With a spark, it ignited, casting a warm glow across the wall. Sean pressed the tip against the wick of the candle, and blowing out the steel, he picked up the dish, the cool metal pressed to his fingers like a vine to a tree.

His footwork was cumbersome and clumsy as he stepped down the stairs, muttering a colorful array of curses at whoever decided to pay him a visit at such a late hour. 

Although he was rather annoyed by the visitor’s presence, Sean was by no means one to disregard common courtesy. And so, not wanting to leave the fellow out in the cold, he moved as quickly as he could. But in the dark, without his spectacles, he found himself grasping at thin air, trying to take hold of something, anything. 

“I’m coming!” he croaked out, a sort of apology to the visitor for his insolence.

Finally taking hold of the wall, careful not to press the candle too near to the door, for it was an awfully inconvenient time to start a fire, Sean turned the knob, opening the door slightly so as not to let the cold in. 

Julian breathed a great sigh of relief at the sight of him, the likes of which he had never felt so strongly. And much to his younger brother’s dismay, he grabbed hold of his wrist.

Sean nearly dropped the candle, pulling himself away at what felt like the cold hand of death. “What in hell do you think you’re doing—”

His voice barely audible, his whole body having been exhausted from his trek back to the house, Julian said only one word. “H-help.”

Sean’s eyes went wide, his brain finally registering the sight in front of him. Somehow, Julian had gotten into the water, perhaps the river or harbor, and by the looks of it, he wouldn’t last much longer in the cold. Adrenaline suddenly snapping him into action, he led his brother inside. 

“Oh dear God,” he said, his voice raising in both pitch and volume as he pulled him towards the center of the room. “What happened to you?” 

Julian wordlessly fell onto the sofa, his breath shallow and shaky. His eyes searched the ceiling, his cheeks burning in the sudden warmth of the fire. He opened his mouth to speak, but instead fell into a violent coughing spasm, not unlike those of Sir Harrison.

Sean darted back and forth across the room, lighting every candle, stoking the fire with a religious fervor, and all the while nearly tripping over his own feet. “Don’t speak!” he urged. “You shouldn’t speak…” and wincing as hot wax from one of the candles dripped onto his arm, he ran to the sofa, where his brother now laid dilapidated.

His hands moving like lightning, he placed his hand against Julian’s forehead, causing the man to flinch. 

Sean’s face fell, and he crossed his arms, digging his fingers into his skin. The dread hit him like a carriage to a hound.

“You must change.” he whispered, his voice low and serious. “Get out of your wet clothes somehow.” 

Julian said nothing, his eyes wide and his breathing shallow.

Practically sprinting, Sean approached the coat stand. It nearly toppled as he flung his cloak off of it. “I will send for the doctor,” he said, hastily wrapping the fabric around himself. “and be back as soon as I can.” 

His brother shut his eyes. “Do not.” 

Sean was dumbfounded. “You are near death, Julian!” he cried, his voice pleading. “And I will do all in my scope of ability to keep you from it. I have no other choice.” 

He pulled one of his boots onto his foot, not bothering to tie the laces. And as though he had teleported, he suddenly appeared next to Julian, a heavy quilt in his arms.

“At least take this,” he insisted. “if you will not change.” 

“Do not call the doctor…” Julian muttered, nearly being smothered by the blanket. 

Sean shook his head vehemently. “Hush up. You are delirious.”

Throwing his other boot onto him, he swung the door open. But before he ran into the snow, he turned around, a glint of fear sparkling in his eyes, highlighted by the candlelight.

“Please,” he urged, more serious than Julian had ever seen him. “please stay safe.”

Julian hummed wordlessly. 

Behind him, he heard the door slam shut. A newfound warmth filled his body and soul, giving him a strange sense of comfort. He was by his lonesome in a candlelit cottage, dripping wet with ice water, and at the brink of death, and yet he was at peace. 

With a deep sigh, he let his eyelids fall shut. In the blackness, he felt as though the sofa was swaying, rocking with the same rhythm as a ship. It melted through the floor, sinking like a knife through butter into oblivion. 

He winced, the sudden movement causing a dull pain in his head. The objects of the room grew further away from him and the sofa, becoming small and obscured. He whined and reached for them, needing them to come back to him. 

They drifted away from him into space, until all that was left for him to see was nothing. Until all that there was left for him to think was nothing. 

“I’m not sure.” a voice spoke hesitantly. “I never even heard him leave.” 

A second voice mulled over this revelation, and speaking slowly, as though it was afraid, it asked, “Do you think he will be alright?”

An eerie silence arose between the two. “I sadly cannot say with certainty.” The first voice cleared its throat. “The doctor said he could be dangerously pneumonic…”

“What is that?”

“Water in the lungs, if I’m not mistaken. It’s very bad for humans.” 

Julian sniffled, a light warmth tickling his face. 

The first voice continued, frightened. “You should have seen him when he arrived. He looked like hell…” it laughed, although it was clearly unamused. “I don’t know what I am to do if he dies. What would I tell his mother? Does she even know how to read?”

Julian blinked, his eyelids feeling heavier than mercury. He didn’t turn around, instead keeping his eyes fixed to the pattern of the sofa. He listened intently to the voices.

The second was reassuring the first, his voice gentle, but just as frightened, almost like he didn’t believe his own words. He suddenly perked up. “Perhaps it was a siren?” 

“No!” the first cried, frustrated. “That does not explain it. When he came here, he was still in his shift. He did not even have his boots on.” 

“Did he take them off?”

“He couldn’t have! Why- why would he have left? Why would he have gone for a walk at such an hour in the bitter cold? It just doesn’t make sense!”

Julian hummed and began to lift himself to sit up before he thought better of it. His bones were heavy, his muscles weak. So he just cleared his throat, alerting the two of his presence. 

“Sean,” he croaked. “Macca. Good morning.”

The two turned to face him, Sean with such speed that Julian could have sworn he had given himself whiplash. He ran over to the subject of the conversation.

“Oh thank heavens you’re awake!” Sean said, relieved. “Do you feel alright?”

Julian raised his eyebrows and tried again to sit up, this time successfully. “Look like hell, feel like hell, probably about the same temperature, too.” 

Sean pressed the back of his palm against the man’s forehead, causing him again to flinch. 

“Yeah, you’ve got a nasty fever.” he said, shaking his head. “I’m not surprised, though.” 

Julian drew his attention to the elephant—or rather, the siren—in the room. “How’d you get him here?”

“Grit.” Sean answered stoically, his voice having lost its usual lightness and youthful ambiance. “Now how did you get in the water?”

Julian sighed, trying to piece together memories of the other night. “What time is it?”

Sean’s face contorted in confusion. “That doesn’t matter. How did you get in the water?”

Julian peered out the window and saw that the sun shone brightly outside, casting a serene light onto the sofa. “Shouldn’t you be in the bakery by this hour?”

Sean sighed, pushing his glasses closer to his face. “Mister Hocke is a kind man. I’m sure he’ll understand.” 

Julian grunted. 

“How did you get in the water?”

He chuckled at the young man’s dead-set persistence, and finally began to recall memories of the other night.

The vines.

The flowers.

The rosebox.

John. 

Julian cast his gaze downwards, his face growing hot with shame.

_ I hate him. _

His voice came out slowly, his mind carefully constructing the words. “I had a very strange dream,” he said. “and I awoke to find myself drowning in the river.”

Macca placed a hand to his face, his fingers trailing against his cheek. “Was it of a memory?” he asked, his voice patient. 

Julian blinked. “Yes, it was. I dreamed I was speaking to my father. When I came to visit him many years ago.” 

The siren nodded, his face turning pale and grave. “Was there something strange about it?” he asked. “Something that wasn’t supposed to be there?”

Julian’s eyes widened. The door. “Yes!” he answered bewildered. “Yes, there was a violet door where the oven was supposed to be.” 

Macca locked eyes with the man. His voice came out firmly, almost aggressively. Like a mother accusing her child of a misdeed. “Did you touch it?”

Julian drew back, intimidated by the siren’s tone.

“Julian, did you touch the door?”

He broke. “Yes! Yes, I did! I’m sorry…”

“ _ Istöra re aud…”  _ Macca cursed, swatting his hand in the air. 

“I’m sorry!”

Sean interrupted, frantic. “What does that mean? Is it bad?”

The siren shook his head and placed a clawed finger to his lips. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.

Julian was miserable in the scene, for not only was he so terribly ill, likely even pneumonic, but now he also faced chastisement from Macca for having touched the door in his dream. His head buzzed.

After much deliberation, Macca began to speak, still chewing on his words the same way he would a human tongue. “It is no fault of yours,” he said, picking up on Julian’s discomfort. “but you were not supposed to do that. You were not supposed to touch the door.”

Julian said nothing, instead letting Sean fill the speaking role. 

“I do not understand.” he said, lost.

Macca took a deep breath. “I can not get into the science of it all, for I have neither the time nor knowledge to properly explain it, but essentially,  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ can communicate through dreams.

“It’s much easier for them, since their—oh, what do humans call it?” he trailed off, deep in thought. 

Suddenly he pointed his finger towards the ceiling. “Souls!” he cried. “It’s easier because their souls are still in the sea of science, as opposed to their physical form in the sea of time!”

Sean rested his weight against the desk chair and crossed his arms. “In layman’s terms?” 

“Oh, I’ll just save my breath. But, anyway, they communicate through dreams. And this kind of dream is different because it is always a memory. A very detailed and surreal reenactment of a memory.

“However, since it is not fully real, one thing will be different. Perhaps someone’s pendant is another color, perhaps an object will appear in an odd place.” Macca’s eyes bounced back and forth between the two men. He suddenly stopped. “Are you listening?” he asked. “This next part is important.”

Julian grunted a vague response that could perhaps be interpreted as a ‘yes’, while Sean chose to answer more formally with a ‘yes, sir’.

“Very good.” the siren played with his hair, fluffing a section to the right of his face. “Now, what is crucial is that you do not interact with the odd object  _ at all _ .” he turned to Julian specifically. “Although you had no way of knowing… but when you do interact with it, it can distort the power of the  _ sje’inn’a’e _ . In short, it shifts the balance of power between the physical world and the magical.”

Sean tapped his fingers on the desk, allowing each one to fall before the next rose. “So what does that mean for us, then?”

Macca let the question simmer in his mind. After a minute, he replied, “Well, it could be that he becomes more chaotic.”

“The bird?”

“Yes, Ethelein.” The siren corrected dismissively. He directed his gaze to the sofa. “Julian,” he called, “what exactly did you do with the door?”

Julian went to clear his throat, but was caught a second time in a violent coughing spasm. He gasped. “I opened it,” he said, his voice as steady as a horse on stilts. “and I went through it.” 

Macca’s eyes widened, his face growing pale. “Oh dear…” he brought a hand to his face and his eyes to Julian’s. “what was inside?” 

“I saw a field of orange flowers,” the man explained, clutching his chest. “and an olive-green sky. I laid down in it, and then saw a bird. Ethelein, no doubt.”

Macca bit his lip, anxious.

“He started screaming bloody murder, and flew off. Then I was wrapped in vines,” he reminisced, shuddering at the memory of their feel on his skin. “and they dragged me into the ground. And I awoke in the river.” 

Macca nodded slowly. “Yes, well, next time...don’t do that.” 

Julian hummed, knowing that such advice would certainly be heeded, especially with the growing pain in his chest. 

The siren was about to go on, about to ask Julian the nature of the dream before his opening the door, when he heard a quiet voice from across the room.

“Hello, sir,” Sean said. “have you brought us something?”

Macca turned his head slowly towards the young man. He sat on his knees by the window, peering out of the glass. “Sean,” he spoke, his voice lifting. “what is out there?”

“It is the bird,” Sean replied evenly, not wanting Macca and Julian to lose their heads. 

Julian kicked his blanket off of him. It fell to the ground anticlimactically. The siren gasped. “Do  _ not  _ let it in.” 

Sean squinted. “He has something for us in his beak. A flower.”

Julian felt a chill run down his spine. With a cough, he asked, “What color?”

“It’s white.” Sean turned to him. “A white rose.” He pressed the tips of his fingers against the glass. Against the bird’s body. “I think he wishes to be let inside.”

As though from one mind, Macca and Julian spoke at the same time. “Do not,” they said. 

Julian tried to stand, but the siren directed him to stay on the sofa. For the better, Julian thought. He was still far too weak to be on his feet. 

“He looks nice enough,” Sean noted, all rational thought having disappeared with the bird’s arrival. 

“He threw me in the goddamned river!” 

The young man paused, drawing his hand ever so slightly away from the glass pane. “Yes,” he said, returning to his senses. “yes, you’re right.” 

He stood upright, his eyes still fixed on the creature. “I’m sorry, sir. Perhaps you may come back another time.”

“You should not speak to him like that.” Macca chastised. “He is a demon, not a child.” 

“Well, I quite like doves.” Sean watched the bird as it dropped the rose from its beak. “I find them to be rather calming.” 

“He is only a dove to you, keep in mind. I see him as a blackbird.” 

“It doesn’t matter now,” Sean said, opening the window to retrieve the flower. “He’s flown off.” He walked closer towards the two, holding the rose delicately in his hands, as though it were some kind of precious gem. He rubbed his thumb against its petals. It was still cold. Cool and pale like a star fallen from the big hit sky.

Macca slumped in his chair. “I have really ought to get some things to keep him away.” he said to himself. “Pearls and soap lanterns… And I’d better get a hold of some crystal…” 

Sean tuned out the siren’s musings, his eyes still locked on the rose. It had been an awfully long time since he had seen a white rose. 

Now, Sean Ono Lennon was never one to believe in prophecy or magic, although, in such a situation, in which birds declare the living dead and condemn men to death by drowning, one can not help but let their mind wander. 

The white dove, the white rose… he had a feeling he knew what was happening, at least partly. 

Pressing the rose to his chest, holding it gently in two hands, he made a silent vow to himself to wait and see where this situation would lead.

He had to.


	14. Tread Lightly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Macca and Ringo look for a sea witch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder that Iyera is Linda’s name in this fic.
> 
> Also when I say “human soap” I mean soap made with melted human fat. You need oil to make soap. So sirens use a sort of human shortening. Have fun laying awake at night thinking about that.

  * _At least one string of black pearls (or as many as you can find)_


  * Soap lanterns (maybe four)


  * Icons of Saruyo, Heip, Yomin


  * Crystalline figure (maybe opal? I hear opal’s good…)


  * Glass (any color should work)



Ringo read over the list, his lips puckering like he had eaten too many monkberries. He turned to his siren friend, confusion painted on his face. “Will we be able to find all this?” he asked.

Macca pressed his luggage into the satchel with his hands, trying to compress it enough to let him tie it shut. He sighed, both at the question and the problem in front of him. “Well, we’ll find what we can.”

“Are the locals even Semolinist?”

Finally drawing the satchel shut, taking extra care not to tear the twine, Macca turned around. “You know, I’m not sure.”

“It’ll be pretty hard to find a statue of Saruyo if they aren’t Semolinist.” 

The siren tied his luggage around his waist, keeping it snug against his skin. “Like I said, we’ll find what we can.” he licked his teeth. “But the statue would be very nice.” 

For the first time that afternoon, the mermen’s eyes met. Macca smiled, if only to be polite.

“Shall we go, then?” he asked.

Ringo nodded, and the two left. 

Macca drifted just slightly behind the octopus-man— just enough to irritate him. Ringo slowed his pace to match the siren’s and wondered where they were going to find a statue of Saruyo in such waters, still untrusting of his friend’s half-hearted reassurances.

The two were quiet for the first half of the journey, stopping only to attempt to ask a young group of eels where the nearest witch was. But being so close to the shore, and so young, their Naiadic was nowhere near fluent enough for the two men to understand. 

So on they went, still silent, in search of a magician. It was not until they came to pass a field of white beans around ten minutes later that Ringo decided to speak. He was going to remark on the size of the fruits, which were rather large for the time of the year, and to harken back on their life together on his mother’s farm, but he was interrupted by Macca’s voice, his tone gloomy.

“Julian dreamed of Ethelein.” he announced.

Ringo frowned. He was not in the least bit surprised by what he was being told, but it concerned him. He sighed.

Macca carried on. “And he messed with the sign from him, too. Of course, I can’t blame him, but—”

Now this drew the attention of the octopus-man. As far as he was concerned, nobody ever fooled about in  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ dreams. 

You see, much like men, seafolk seemed to have a grave fascination with the occult, with magicians and commoners alike often speculating and fantasizing about the afterlife and its inhabitants. 

Particularly romanticized were tales of the third sea of the afterworld. It took many names across the Semolinist world— the Trench of Dread, the Chasm of Black, and so forth. But the commonly accepted translation was rather straight and to the point in its etymology, notably lacking the mysterious symbolism or illustrious descriptions of its counterparts. The wicked fifth plane of reality, in the common Naiadic, was translated as the Sea of Monsters.

In it lived hundreds of thousands of awesome beasts, creatures the size of whole buildings with unnatural and downright macabre anatomy. And as is so often the case with the minds of both men and mermen, these monsters, wicked as they were, often found themselves the subjects of art and literature, the scope of which included the simple folktale and the eight-part opera, with all manner of mediums in between.

And  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ were no exception to these tales. If anything, they were the golden calf of such stories. 

Even as a child, Ringo had heard tales of men and women who had been haunted by the malicious spirits of long-gone witches. They were a certain kind of initiation rite into adulthood; no one’s youth was complete if they had not forced themselves to stay fully awake under the light of the moon, convinced in every sense of the word that if they were to sleep they would become the new victims of the demons, cursed to whatever fate had befallen those in the anecdotes.

But never in these stories did the main characters, whether heroes, villains, or just very unlucky everyday people, disturb the fragile facade that  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ dreams created, for anyone who had ever lived and was raised a Semolinist would never dare to do such a thing. It was knowledge as common as sand in the seabed. 

But Julian was not raised a Semolinist, nor were any of the other humans. And therein laid Ringo and Macca’s problem. The humans had no way of knowing how grave the path was for those willing to take their chances with  _ sje’inn’a’e _ , creating an unprecedented and very interesting situation.

“What happened then?” Ringo asked, his mind overtaken by mortal curiosity. 

“He was thrown into the river.” Macca shook his head, clearly not fond of the memory. “He nearly died…” 

Ringo felt his skin break out in goosebumps. His flesh grew pale. For such an announcement he had no response, and so the two continued to swim, stopping once more to admire the large farmhouse that laid past the bean field. 

It was then that Ringo caught an accidental glimpse of his friend’s left arm, wrapped in a sheer white lace, woven ornately with intricate patterns and ancient characters. He sighed at the sight, turning to look at his own glove.

It was more faded than the siren’s, its fabric stiff, its color more similar to cream than milk. And he supposed that was a good thing. It meant Macca had gotten more time with his mate.

In a quiet voice, Ringo began to speak. “George was asking about Iyera,” he said. “It caught me off guard.”

Macca nodded, his face unchanging at the mention of his wife. “What did you say about her?”

“I said he’d best talk to you about it. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him.” 

The siren smiled. It was very much in character for Ringo to do such a thing, to walk on shells at the mention of the dead. He was very sensitive to topics of the nature, having been widowed once in his life, and, along with all those assembled in the town at the request of the Captain, having lost some very dear friends. 

And finding themselves again with nothing left to say, they swam on through the sea, relishing in the peace found between two friends comfortable in their silence. 

They passed caves and crevices, fields of herbs and berries, marketplaces stocked with meat and pottery, and scores of fish and seafolk, until Ringo suddenly pulled at Macca’s arm, slowing down in the water. 

“Is that a witch?” he asked, nodding his head towards a lobster woman out with her young children. “or are my eyes just bad?” 

The siren squinted, trying to get a better look at the young lady. “No, you aren’t blind yet,” he laughed. “I think I see a sash.” He adjusted the satchel around his waist. “Here.”

The two approached her, Macca stopping to wave to her children, and Ringo cleared his throat. 

“ _ As’tasje, _ ” he said, folding his hands together below his chin. “Hello.”

The woman nodded shyly at the two of them, her cheeks turning pink as her eyes reached Macca and his blood-stained smile.

“ _ As’tasje… _ ” she returned. 

The octopus-man pointed to the sash wrapped around her waist. “Are you a magician?” he asked. “A Semolinist witch, perhaps?”

The woman’s face grew serious. “Yes, I am.”

Macca sighed, relieved. “Oh, finally!” he said, sending a conversational chuckle across the group. “We need your help, if you aren’t too busy.” 

The woman bit her lip. After a moment of hesitation, she turned around and said something to her eldest daughter in the local tongue. 

“Should we go to the temple?” she asked, now alone with the two.

Both men spoke at the same time, expressing great relief at the invitation. They laughed, and it was understood that they would be going.

The woman, who introduced herself on the journey as the Respectable Sea Witch Eschri Kigonn, led them towards a small and rather plain building, made out of clay with long, narrow slits peeking inside. 

“It’s nothing like Na’atsji temples…” Macca muttered. 

Ringo laughed at this. At least where he came from, all temples were that bland. “You don’t get out much, do you?”

“I suppose not.” His friend chuckled.

The three swam through the door into the building and stilled in the grand hall. Eschri turned to them then.

“What is it that you need?” she asked, still eyeing Macca with an air of suspicion.

The siren’s face hardened. “We are having issues with a  _ sje’inn’a’e _ .” he explained. “If it is possible, then we would like your help in warding it off. Unfortunately, it has been staying rather far, but… I’ve made a list of what we may need.” 

He handed the short piece of paper to the magician. She read it over once, nodded, and directed the two to follow her. 

“Is it malicious?” she asked, turning into a second, smaller hallway to the right. 

Macca laughed nervously. “Well, he’s been loose thirty years now without us knowing…” 

The witch gave a low hum, shaking her head as she neared the entrance of a shrine, covered by a thin veil of black fabric. She turned around, a serious expression on her face.

“You must be reverent now,” she instructed. “please bow your heads so that I may bless you.” 

The two quickly did as they were told, their eyes shut and directed towards the floor. 

Eschri raised her arms over their heads, similarly shutting her eyes and tilting her head towards the ground. 

“Disciple Saruyo,” she began, her voice echoing in the dim hallway. “who so faithfully did live, through your divine intercession, granted to you by the Great Walrus of the North, I ask: Bless these men, righteous in their beliefs, so that they may be worthy of your presence.” 

The water around her stilling in the moment, the magician took a deep breath, and slowly opening her eyes, she tilted her head back into its original position.

Macca and Ringo did the same.

“Come,” she instructed, pulling aside the mess of murky cloth in the doorway.

The three went in, one at a time, and were faced immediately upon entrance by a life-sized statue of the patroness of death, carved elegantly in black rock. Her face was dyed a bright white, painted traditionally with circles of grey spotting her cheeks.

She sat peacefully kneeling atop a circular bed of sand, her arms raised ninety degrees at her shoulders. Her palms faced open towards the three, wrapped down to the wrists in copper and strung with pearls.

Macca lost his breath at the sight, forgetting himself.

“Have you brought an offering for the disciple?” Eschri spoke softly, reverent in the presence of the venerated. 

The siren’s face flushed. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Yes, of course!”

Macca frantically undid his satchel, searching in a frenzy for a fitting gift to the goddess. He tossed aside coins and fruit in the pouch, sifting through things he didn’t even remember packing, until he eventually found it. 

He set the satchel on the ground, paying no mind as a single coin escaped and floated away towards the ceiling. 

Holding the heavy pendant loosely in his hands, he approached the spread under the disciple’s tail. It was littered with all manner of things— baskets of fruit and herbs, vials of oil and poisons, and hundreds upon hundreds of pearls. 

His hands shaking, Macca bowed his head, pressed the pendant to his forehead, and furrowing his brow, he placed it squarely between a bejeweled turtle shell and a spread of folded seaweed. 

Having completed the offering, he placed his folded hands to his chest and bowed, backing away from the disciple.

Eschri tilted her head as he moved away. “A magician’s pendant?”

Macca nodded. “It belonged to our friend. The  _ sje’inn’a’e _ .” And flustered at the witch’s skepticism, he explained, “I was hoping she would use it to guide him back towards the afterlife, y’know...”

The woman hummed, showing no emotion. “Now,” she said, clasping her hands. “how many black pearls did you say you needed?”

Ringo shrugged. “We didn’t really have a number in mind.”

“About enough to ward off a  _ sje’inn’a’e _ .” Macca specified, laughing uncomfortably at his own joke.

The sea witch did not laugh. “Is he very chaotic?”

“Yes,” the siren sighed. “he nearly killed a good friend of ours.” 

Eschri grew pale, warning,“Then you must contain him as soon as you can.” She swam across the room, through a small doorway. Muffled from the thick clay walls, she called, “Do you have a crystalline of his familiar?” 

Macca strained to hear her. “Um, no. I’m afraid we don’t.”

Her voice drew nearer to the main chapel as she moved about the room. “What was it?”

“He was a bird.”

The magician huffed. “And what was his physical form?” 

“A siren. He was of Riddidiya, specifically.” And compelled by his species’ traditional beliefs, he added, “But he was silent.” 

“Does that matter?”

Macca drew back, again flustered. His face grew warm with embarrassment. “Well, no…” he staggered. “not to magic, I don’t think. I- I have nothing against the silent, really. My daughter actually—”

Eschri overrode him. “I’m afraid we have no crystallines of birds.” She laughed to herself. “They aren’t regarded very highly around here.”

Macca forced a laugh, trying to compensate for his misspeak. “Oh, is that right?”

The magician appeared in the chapel, holding a shallow, sturdy basket dripping with ink. Tied atop its lid was a small, thin square piece of fabric dyed a rich black. “Yes, it is.” 

She pulled two strings of pearls from around her neck, coiling them in her hands. “Please fold your hands.” 

Macca and Ringo did again as they were instructed. They watched intently as Eschri held the pearls up towards the statue. “Disciple Saruyo,” she called. “just as you had in your most holy life, let me bless these pearls, granting protection from the dead, the wicked, and all forces of evil, whether in this sea or another, to these men.”

She lowered the pearls, tying them neatly into the small cloth, creating a tiny pouch which she quickly grabbed hold of, lest it float away, and opened the basket. 

The inside was spread with sand, dyed black as night by the ink inside. Eschri placed the pouch into the mixture, soaking the pearls with their rich color.

Singing an ancient hymn in a shy voice, she began, “ _ Urai’a da hayezi, _ ”

Ringo listened intently.

“ _ Yasmir edsayan, _ ”

Macca shut his eyes, praying to no one in particular that the pearls would dispel Ethelein’s spirit.

“ _ Imni yi grazd Yutto-Kiro, _ ” The magician paused here, taking a deep breath. “ _ Ef mien swadi jidaha samban. _ ”

Eschri lifted the pouch, dripping with black, and repeated her hymn as she bowed to the statue, watching over her with eyes of stone. 

“These I bless,” she sang, her voice growing louder. “These pearls, that in the rite of black magic, they should bring new life.” 

Her hymn ending, she began to untie the pouch, revealing the dark goods inside. Eschri extended the cloth to the two men.

Macca took them gently in his hands and began to reclaim his satchel. “ _ Anghohd _ !” he said sincerely, making good use of the only phrase he knew in the local tongue. “Thank you!”

“ _ Saruyo Anghohd. _ ” Eschri corrected. “Thanks be to Saruyo.” 

The siren nodded, his face again growing pink. 

“Now, what else was it you needed?” the woman asked. “Lanterns?” 

“Yes.” Ringo piped up. “Do you have any made of soap?”

“Of course.” Eschri drifted again into the side room, packing away the basket and cloth. “And you needn’t worry about getting it blessed,” she added. “All of our soap is venerated before we carve it.”

The octopus-man laughed. “That’s smart.”

“It is. Now would you like the lanterns made with human soap? It may work well if he was a siren.”

Macca smiled at the thought of the soap. His mother used to make it, when he was young. Oh, and the whole house would smell like burned flesh for days afterward… In a strange way, he missed that smell. “Yes, that would be wonderful.” And as an afterthought, he added, “Where did you even get human soap?” 

“It is made for us by the Wegosch tribe. They just send some here every couple of cycles. How many lanterns would you like?”

Ringo turned to Macca, waiting for him to answer. The siren didn’t seem to pay him any mind. He nudged his arm.

“Hm? Oh, right— Um, we need about four, please. Four or five.” 

“Of course.” And with that, Eschri returned with a woven sack in her arms, which she promptly handed to Ringo. “Do be careful with that.” she warned. “You know how soap can be.” 

The octopus-man nodded, laughing politely. “Oh, yes, I know.”

“I’m afraid we don’t have any icons of the disciples.” the magician lamented. Macca was amazed by her memory of everything on the list. “It’s not a very  _ grand _ temple, after all… but we have more than enough glass to go around. I put it in the sack already. And it’s been blessed, also.” 

The two thanked her profusely, practically speaking over one another.

Tightening his satchel, Macca said, “I suppose we should be going?”

Ringo shut his eyes and nodded. “Yes, yes, we should.” 

Again speaking over each other, the mermen began to bid farewell to Eschri. 

“Thank you so much—”

“You’ve been so kind, y’know—”

“Yes, really. So kind—”

“Take good care—”

“And do say hello to your children for me—”

The magician’s face grew grim as the two turned to leave, still calling out jumbled thank-you’s and your-children-were-lovely’s. She followed behind them into the hall.

“Wait,” she called. 

The two turned to her, both equally confused. 

Eschri raised an eyebrow. “Do either of you know any magic? At all?”

Ringo and Macca looked at each other and shrugged.

“I know more than him!” Macca joked. The sea witch was, unsurprisingly, not amused (she never was, it seemed). He cleared his throat. “But, um, yes, I am a matchmaker by profession.”

Eschri nodded, placed her hand to her chin. “I only ask because, well, this haunting sounds rather… serious. It would be of benefit to you, I believe, to have someone in your company with a good understanding of the science.”

“Of course.” Macca said. “I couldn’t agree more.” 

The three stood in uncomfortable silence, all lost in thought, until Eschri said, “We have a book on  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ in our library written by our chaplain. It outlines all current knowledge of them, as well as various spells and warnings regarding them. Would you like to take it with you?”

“Oh- yes! Yes, that would be great, actually!”

She was smiling, and already turning the corner as he spoke. “Let me fetch it for you.” 

Ringo and Macca said nothing to each other while they waited for her, opting instead to appreciate the drawings and runes that rolled across the hall.

Eschri returned a minute later with a large book, bound in thick pressed roots. It was rather old, Macca thought, judging from the salt crystals growing on the pages. 

“This,” The magician said, handing the book over to him, “should have everything you need.”

Macca ran his hand along the cover. “May it serve me well…”

“Indeed.” 

He looked up suddenly, his eyes meeting those of the witch. They bore a certain sadness in them, much to his surprise. It was the first time he had seen any real emotion present itself in the woman.

She frowned. “Well, on your way. I don’t want to keep you here.” 

The siren blinked, turning towards the door. “Of course. Do take care.”

“I shall.”

The two neared the door and left in silence, swimming off without a word. 

Eschri shut her eyes tight, her head buzzing as she considered the men’s situation. “Tread lightly,” she whispered.


	15. The Dinner of Dunces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sean decides to mess with the young Lord Harrison, and is sorely reprimanded for it.

Yoko sat at the head of the table, being the lady of the house. Opposite her was Sir Harrison, with Dhani, Kyoko, and Ringo to his left. To his right sat Macca, Sean, and a rather disheveled-looking Julian. 

And spread out between them was the long cherished mediator of a hearty supper, which in this case consisted of a roast turkey, accompanied by potatoes which Kyoko had on accident burned, a plate of cheese, a small basket of bread Sean had been allowed to bring home from the bakery, beside which was a dish of butter, a pot of baked beans, and a pile of boiled and buttered corn.

Also on the table was a second loaf of bread, dense and golden, with cracks running along its top. Sean had baked it himself, and described it to the guests as a sort of sweet bread made with maize, an American specialty of sorts, and recommended it to all of them as a dessert. 

Once grace had been said to a multitude of gods and deities, and a particular petition to save the souls of the diners from “that wicked demon-bird”, as Dhani had called it, had been added, while the patrons of the house began to reach over one another for food, Macca cleared his throat.

“If I could have your attention!” he said, raising a hand in the air. And raising his voice above the chorus of polite conversation, he added, “Your attention, please!”

The guests fell silent at this, one by one, their laughter and banter ceasing. All eyes turned to the siren.

He smiled. “Yes, thank you. As you may know, Julian nearly drowned the other night, and fell rather ill because of it.”

Julian showed no emotion as he waved his hand, signifying that he had, indeed, taken ill.

Macca continued. “He is better, now, of course,”

Sir Harrison coughed. “Thanks be to the gods.”

“Yes, yes. We’re all very happy he’s safe.” The siren blinked, casting his eyes just slightly away from the diners. “But he drowned because of Ethelein.”

Kyoko laughed nervously and brought a to her chest. “Of course he did!” she said, frantic. “Of course he did, because that blasted bird just cannot leave us be!”

Macca tried in vain to soothe the woman’s nerves, understanding fully that she was rather frightened by the bird, but was interrupted by a similar proclamation from the young Sir Harrison.

Dhani’s face was stony, his voice cold and hissing. “What we ought to do is exorcise the house. Exorcise all of us, really.” He stabbed his fork through a thick slice of bread, and in one swift motion, dragged his knife through its body. “We all should go home. Burn the place down, even. There is no such thing as being too cautious.”

His father sighed and placed a finger on his temple. “Do not speak so.” he said in a hushed tone, his face portraying exhaustion and defeat.

Macca raised both his arms towards the patrons and turned his head from side to side. “It’s alright.” he said. “All is well and I have a plan. But please hear me out, will you?”

Kyoko shook her head. Dhani did the same, angrily shoving a piece of the bread into his mouth. He did not look at the siren. 

“Thank you.” Macca sighed. “You all really must stop interrupting me when I am saying something important. Now, I’ll keep this short so we can speak of lighter things.” He cleared his throat and rested his arms back in his lap. “Basically, Ethelein is going to communicate with us through dreams. They’ll be of memories we have, except one thing will be off.” 

He paused here for emphasis, turning to each individual person and meeting their eyes. “It is  _ extremely  _ important, however, that you do not interact with the… how shall I say… outlier? Yes, do not under  _ any circumstances  _ interact with it, lest you wish to befall a fate similar to Julian.” 

The guests grumbled in agreement. Sean blinked, his eyes fixed on the siren. Macca did not yet understand the situation, at least not in the same way he did. Sean was tempted to explain to him his hypothesis, as it related to the bird, although quickly shot down the idea. 

There was no sense in explaining it now; not with everyone around. Besides, it was still too early to draw conclusions about the bird. 

Just wait, he thought, recalling his promise to himself. Just wait and see.

Uncomfortable in the relative silence of the dining room, Sir Harrison looked to Julian with a grin. “We’ve missed you here, you know.” he said sincerely.

The man nodded, but did not meet his eyes. “I’m sure you have,” he said, his response unclear in its motive and authenticity.

George waved his fork, its prongs entrapped in a slice of potato, in the man’s direction. “Oh, yes!” he said. “I haven’t seen you in thirty years, mind you, and you went off and fell ill! Oh, the humanity…”

Julian chuckled. “I’m sorry about that.” 

“Oh, worry not. I have been ill for this whole trip, you know.”

Dhani sighed, poking absentmindedly at the beans on his plate. 

His father continued. “Ah, but we needn’t speak of that.” And after falling into one of his routine coughing fits, he asked, his voice hoarse, “Are you wed?” 

Sean laughed aloud at the notion. Julian raised his eyebrows to the ceiling, the corners of his mouth turning upwards. Still not looking at Sir Harrison, he answered, “I am not, nor do I plan on being.” 

The man nodded respectfully. “Perhaps you ought to become a priest, then.” he joked. 

Julian freezed, his knife halfway across a slice of turkey. His cold eyes finally turned to Sir Harrison’s. “If I am to be a priest,” he said, his voice hushed and serious. “then it shall be a cold day in Hell when I am ordained.” 

Laughter scattered across the table.

Shutting his eyes, George replied, “Very well, then. Very well. I suppose I’ll leave your reasons for such between you and your creator.” 

Sean smiled menacingly, his gaze directed at the man’s son. He thought he had better seize the opportunity while it remained. 

“Well, I don’t suppose he has done anything as bad as you, Sir Harrison.” he joked, lifting his glass towards the old man.

A stunned silence swept across the room. Yoko lifted her eyebrows, a slight smile creeping over her face. George nearly choked on his corn, his eyes bulging as he began to understand the meaning of the comment. 

Julian grinned, proud to see his story of the man’s lineage manifest itself in the form of a taunt. It left Sir Harrison at a standstill, you see. He could not deny the comment, for he had, after all, bore a bastard son. But he could also not confirm it, for said bastard son was not aware of his status. 

Dhani cocked an eyebrow. “What are you looking at me for?” he asked, suspicious.

This only made Sean grin wider. “Perhaps you should ask your father.” 

Macca laughed audibly at this, clutching his hand to his chest for dear life.

George interrupted, turning to Sean. “So, Sean!” he cried, his voice rather frantic and loud. “Are you wed?”

Dhani’s face contorted. Placing his knife down, he asked Sean, “Are you accusing him of something?”

Sean blinked, turning his face down towards his plate. Try as he may, he could not force his smile away. “No.” he breathed. “I am not accusing him of anything.” 

The young Sir Harrison hesitantly placed a forkful of beans into his mouth. Playing off of the young man’s seemingly smug demeanor, he said, “I’m not sure if you should be accusing anyone’s father of anything, all things considered…” 

Sean tilted his head, blinking rapidly at the young man across from him. 

“Oh god, oh god,” Julian looked towards the heavens. “here we go.” 

Dragging his buttered knife painfully slowly across a piece of bread, Sean asked, equal parts playful and confused, “What do you mean, by that, exactly?”

George whistled low, directing his eyes towards Ringo, as though in a sort of comradery of tension. The octopus-man smiled shyly, just as uncomfortable as his friend.

“All I mean,” Dhani said, his face serious. “is that your family name is not exactly very clean either.”

Sean shrugged. “Oh, yes, that much is true.” He pointed to Julian, then back at himself. “I mean, look at this. You aren’t wrong.”

Dhani nodded in response before leaning towards his father, disregarding all standard dining etiquette. After all, the ragtag band of pirates and misfits haunted by an oceanic demon-bird that faced him were not exactly the pinnacle of etiquette themselves.

In a hushed tone, he asked, “His father  _ was _ the one that buggered a bird, right?”

Kyoko gasped, shaking her head at the man next to her. “Do not blaspheme the dead, of all people!” she scolded, striking Dhani lightly on the arm. He flinched at the woman’s touch.

“What?” Sean asked, lost in the scene. “What did he say?” 

George nodded slowly as he reached for a piece of bread. “Dhani,” he whispered. “that is only going off of what I’ve heard in passing. I don’t think it very wise to—”

His son, charged by the room’s playful and mischievous energy, cut him off and turned to Sean, smiling. “I said your father buggered a bird.” he declared bluntly. “At least from what I’ve been told, anyway.”

The room erupted into chaos, as it so often seemed to.

Macca laughed wildly, still holding onto his chest like it would disappear if he didn’t. Ringo just blinked, his head shaking back and forth as he chuckled.

Sean tossed his hands into the air, smiling. “Well I’ll be damned!” he cried, unable to fully understand the comment. “There it is!” 

Kyoko muttered chastisements towards the young Sir Harrison as she cut through her piece of turkey, her lips curling into a frown. 

George was, in all honesty, tempted to give up and slam his head against the table. His face became a deep red, and he cursed himself for ever having told his son the tales of the  _ Sgt. Pepper _ . But a part of him was very happy to see his son acting in such a manner. He had not done so in an awfully long time.

Yoko decided to stay out of the matter, content with her corn and potatoes. It really was a lovely spread, and she was happy to have helped make it.

Likewise, Julian was more focused on the food on his plate, but only because his hearing failed him in the pandemonium. He lifted his eyebrows as he muttered, “It’s funny ‘cause it’s true.”

Sean’s face contorted at the comment. He turned to his brother, his face barely retaining the same smile it had earlier. 

“I beg your pardon?” he said, his voice shrill.

Julian tilted his head. “I said it’s funny ‘cause it’s true.”

At this the young man laughed nervously. 

Macca, on the contrary, had stopped laughing, his face instead falling grim. He turned to Sean from his end of the table. And quietly, but bluntly and earnestly, he said, “It- it  _ is _ true, actually.”

The young man went pale.

Macca continued, rushing to add, “Of course, he wasn’t a bird when they did it!”

He pursed his lips. “At least I don’t think so…” 

George shook his head, which now laid firmly in his hands. He wanted to cry at the scene. It was like some horrible painting. Oh, he thought, how he would pay to see it in paint…

Dhani just cackled, smiling as though he had not a care in the world.

“You  _ cannot  _ be serious!” Sean cried. Kyoko nodded in agreement with him.

Julian lifted his fork, stuffed with potato. “Oh, he’s serious.” he sighed. “And I have unfortunately seen the entry of his journal in which he describes the encounter.” 

Sean fell back in his chair.

“And to answer your question, Macca,” Julian continued. “He was in human form during the…  _ affair _ .” 

Yoko nodded understandingly. “That’s a relief, at least.” 

Sean shook his head disbelievingly as he sank in the chair, his eyes glazing over while he questioned his very existence. “Please, for the love of God, tell me this is an elaborate joke.”

Macca shrugged. “I’m sorry,” he said. “but it’s not. He had an affair with Ethelein.”

The young man laughed, throwing his hands up. “Well, we’ve got a reason for this whole haunting then, don’t we?!” 

The siren let this notion simmer in his mind as Sean reached for a slice of his cornbread, now his last resort in these trying times. 

“No,” Macca said slowly. “that wouldn’t make sense…” 

Sean was somewhere between laughing and crying as he cut into his slice of the cornbread. “I refuse to believe this until I have seen that journal entry.” he muttered to Julian. 

Julian nodded, sighing. “Do you know of the affair he had with Macca?”

Sean tilted his head. “Yes,” he said, defeated. “that much I’ve been told.” 

Dhani’s eyes grew wide, so much so that they looked as if they might pop right out of his skull. “Are you saying that—”

At this the siren intervened. “Perhaps that’s enough revelation for now…” he said. And the table, spare for a very shocked and confused Dhani, seemed to agree with him. 

George sipped his wine once before deciding to break the silence.

“So are you wed, Sean?”

A good hour or two had passed before all but four of the guests had gone on their way home. The madame of the house had retired to her bedroom, citing the hosting of the dinner as a good reason to rest, and her daughter, the Madame Beckett, was lounging in the parlor, a threaded needle in her hand. 

The two Sir Harrisons, in the meantime, were left by themselves in the dining room, wrapped up in passionate discussions of literature and the sciences. They spoke particularly of Thomas Hobbe’s  _ Leviathan _ , a book with which George had always found to be of special interest to him, having descended from the pitfalls of absolute monarchy himself. 

Dhani, of course, was not as worried about the state of the monarchy, still being unaware of his exact lineage. Although Sean  _ had  _ come dangerously close to revealing it at supper, and that troubled the old man. It was not that he was trying to lie to his son, of course. He was just unsure how he would react to the news.

Hell, George himself had nearly lost his mind when his father told him. He remembered spending long hours in the library by himself, his fingers grazing the spines of the books as he recontextualized his entire life and its meaning. And that experience was not one that he wanted to see relived through the eyes of his son. Especially not in the young man’s current state of mind.

But George was not as much scared by the thought of the eventual revelation as he was by the late-night silence that hung in the air between the two. 

It was heavy, and at least for George, uncomfortable. It was a silence he knew all too well, for it was not uncommon in those troubling days for it to fall between them, growing like a deadly vine on a tree. 

It upset him, to put it bluntly. He could recall a time, not all that long ago, in which the two had been much closer. One in which the aforementioned silence had never seemed to appear, leaving a sturdy and tranquil old tree. 

But that had all changed once the new year had been rung in. In the span of a single evening, admittedly a rather unpleasant one, it was as though his son, the one he knew, at least, had completely vanished, leaving behind a mad young man and the first sprouts of thicket around the tree trunk. 

Much had changed after that night, for better or for worse. And make no mistake, Dhani’s sanity was not completely gone. There were still moments in which George would catch a glimpse of the young man as he had known him, but it seemed like for every step forward he took, he took three steps back. He would excitedly discuss the theories of Newton with his father one day, paying next to no mind to George’s coughing fits and wheezing, and then be reduced to a delusional screaming mass at the foot of the staircase the very next evening. 

This juxtaposition was something that George had not the wit to explain or cure, so instead, he was left to observe the young man, and perhaps give him counsel if it was asked of him. 

But no observation of the old Sir Harrison would exclude due credit. And so, as the dreadful silence spread across the two of them, he cleared his throat. 

“It was very nice to see you acting yourself tonight,” he stated, a kind smile on his face. 

Dhani nodded, furrowing his brow. “I suppose so, yes.” 

George leaned back in his chair, resting his hand upon his chin. “Has this trip done you any good, do you think? As we thought it might?”

“Absolutely not.” The young man shut his eyes, his fingers tapping rhythmically against the wood of the table. “Were it not for you holding me back, I would be on the first ship to Madras by now.” 

George huffed, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with his son. “Well, granted, I did not expect the trip to take such a sharp turn into the extraordinary.” 

Dhani did not speak, seemingly lost in thought. The silence grew again in between them, smothering any hope of productive conversation.

George searched his mind for something, at this point,  _ anything _ else to say, but he found himself to be at a loss for words.

So his son spoke for him, saying in a sharp tone, “I should have had the foresight not to come here. Not with this—” he trailed off, his hands gesturing wildly towards his body. “Not with this  _ thing _ inside of me. This demon, this beast, this what have you…”

George closed his eyes, his stomach sinking. “It is through no fault of yours that we’ve found ourselves in this situation, my boy. Macca has already proved that.”

The rhythm of Dhani’s fingers against the table picked up. “With all due respect towards him, Father, I cannot ignore the fact that he is, in and of himself, a beast.” He grimaced. “He knows nothing of human demons and devils; he can only go off of what he knows from his race’s traditions. Thus he is unable to identify the true cause of the bird’s appearance, and he has somehow convinced all of you of his perspective being the correct one.”

“Dhani—”

The young man stood up, now irritated. He pushed his chair into the table with a quick screech. “There is nothing left to say,” he decided. And his tone softening to one more melancholy, he added, “I suppose I might retire to my bed now.” 

George sighed. “Goodnight, then.”

Dhani nodded, and with the creak of the steps, he left his father alone at the table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Go look up “come on down and grab some corn” for a good time. Pretty much how I imagine Sean explaining cornbread to the foreigners.


	16. The Satisfaction of Acknowledgement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Macca dreams of John and Ethelein.

_ 28th of April, 1703 _

_ It seems Ethelein fancies me much more than I had previously suspected. Much more, indeed.  _

_ We went out together into the city, found ourselves a nice, sturdy (and secluded) field, he changed shape to resemble a man, and everything seemed to progress in a rather amorous nature from there on.  _

_ Detestable as the Spanish may be, I will be the first to admit that they have some nice fields... _

The sun spread a dim light through the waters of the harbor that Sunday, just dim enough not to wake Macca. 

He was sleeping peacefully, curled in a shallow ditch he had dug for himself in the sand. His chest rose and fell with his breaths, just as usual, and from a third-person’s point of view, all was well. 

But in the siren’s mind, there was something very wrong.

You see, when he had opened his eyes, he found himself in the dusty and dimly lit underbelly of a pirate ship. 

The familiar old wooden floor dug splinters into his tail, a feeling he was not keen to re-experience. He shifted his weight, uncomfortable.

“So what’s this again?” asked a nasal voice to his side.

The siren quickly turned his head to the man, drawn aback at the sound of his voice.

John looked about the same as he remembered him, only younger. His hair was short and shaggy, and more golden than Macca had remembered it being towards the end of his life. His eyes were shielded by a rickety pair of spectacles, which the siren recalled had constantly been slipping off of John’s nose, and, so, were frequently cursed at. The lenses shone in the candlelight, making it impossible to get a good look at his eyes. 

A second voice sighed, interrupting Macca’s admiration of the man. “It’s a soul reading,” it said. “and if you wish to back out now, then I am afraid you are too late.”

As John laughed, Macca felt a shiver run down his spine. The soul reading…

A pair of wings fluttered in front of him. The siren looked up and met the shining eyes of a blackbird, not unlike the one he had known in New York. 

“Why do you smile, Macca?” Ethelein asked playfully, preening himself with his beak. “I never said the reading was good!” 

Macca drew back. He wasn’t smiling. Or at least, he didn’t think he was. 

The two others in the room burst out laughing, seemingly at random. The siren furrowed his brow. It was then that it dawned on him, his pupils dilating as he reasoned. He was the latest victim of the  _ sje’inn’a’e _ ’s manipulation. 

A cold hand hit his back as John slid down on the floor next to him, sitting cross-legged on his boots. 

“You ever done one of these before?” he asked.

Macca said nothing, his whole body seemingly frozen in time by the familiarity of it all. The scene was exactly as he had remembered it, even including things that he had long since forgotten about. Now, he had read about  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ dreams before, but reading about them was a concept wholly separate from experiencing them. They were so lifelike, he thought; it felt as though he really was young again.

His mouth hung open in a perpetual gape, and try as he may, no words would form in his mouth. He sighed, defeated.

But his lover didn’t seem to notice any of this. Instead, he produced a pipe from his pocket and lit it, his hand grasped firmly on the base as smoke began to rise in the air. He acted as though nothing was wrong. Of course, to him, Macca thought, nothing  _ was  _ wrong.

Ethelein let out a bird-like cackle and shook his head in the same way a mother does to her young child. “You must put that out!” he insisted. “Lest it tamper the results of the soul reading!”

The pirate sighed, a trail of thick gray smoke following his breath. “I know not what language you speak, friend, but it is not English.”

The blackbird muttered a rapid succession of spells under his breath, and in an eruption of dark feathers, he assumed his natural shape, that of a siren. 

“What about that sentence was confusing?” Ethelein asked, placing a shallow ceramic bowl in between the couple.

John shrugged, a nonchalant expression on his face. “You lost me at soul reading, I’m afraid.” 

The sea witch struggled to vest himself in his traditional garment, trying no less than three times to properly connect the ends of his copper hand-bracelet. “You said Macca explained it to you!”

The two suddenly turned to the siren, their eyes alert, as though he was speaking. 

And as though he were an actor in some grotesque supernatural opera, he recited his line, albeit with more poise and hesitation than his former self. “I did.”

John’s eyebrows tilted downwards, a sly smile twisting on his face. “You did not!” he insisted.

“I explained it perfectly well.” said the siren.

“Perfectly well?” The man crossed his arms, still with his pipe in hand. “You were off all night about the  _ five seas of reality _ .”

Ethelein laughed at John’s pompous impression of the siren as he fiddled with the high collar of his underpiece. 

The actor let his eyes wander, tracing over the other siren, the witch, the root of his current predicament. Absentmindedly, and rather dully, he said, “I thought you listened.”

John chuckled, placing his pipe back in its rightful spot— which of course was in between his lips. “I was nearly asleep!” he cried. “You must understand, I have not the capacity to fully comprehend such things!”

The sea witch sighed, finally tying his dark cape over his chest, and topping off the whole ensemble with a heavy copper pendant in the shape of four intersecting parallelograms, in the center of which a large snail shell had been welded— the tribal symbol of Riddidiya. 

Macca’s face fell as his eyes caught sight of the pendant. Just a few days ago he had placed it upon the altar of Saruyo. 

“Well, listen closely, then.” Ethelein warned John. “For I’ll only explain it once.”

The pirate rested his face upon his free hand. “Go ahead.” 

“A soul reading,” the sea witch began. “is a sort of Semolinist mating ritual—”

John raised his eyebrows, grinning like an imbecile. “Get out of our mating ritual!” he interrupted.

Ethelein scowled at him. “Let me continue, please.” he said, his voice cold and deadpan. 

To this the pirate had no response, and so the sea witch went on. 

“I’ll rephrase that,” he nodded sharply. “it’s a Semolinist  _ courtship  _ ritual in which a sea witch identifies key elements of a person’s character in order to evaluate the context of the mates’ relationship.”

Right on cue, Macca sighed. “Wow,” he said, sarcastically. “the exact definition, huh?”

John laughed, his head leaning forward as puffs of smoke sputtered out of his mouth.

Ethelein puckered his lips, shut his eyes, and tapped a clawed finger at his temple. He said nothing.

The pirate gasped quietly, turning to Macca with a grin. “Oh heavens,” he whispered, his voice lifting. “that’s how you  _ know  _ you have angered him.”

And with a smile still plastered on his face, John turned to face the sea witch, his eyes teasing.

The sea witch faced him back, unimpressed. “It’s hard to explain a soul reading,” he sighed. “but basically, it shows you what you need to know about each other. Trust me, it will make more sense  when we do it.” He directed his eyes downward towards John’s hand, still clutching the pipe. “Now, for the love of all things good and holy, will you put that thing out?!”

“Alright, alright!” John yelled. “Look, I’m doing it! Are you seeing this? Is this satisfactory?”

He over-exaggerated his movements, drawing his empty hand pretentiously towards the bowl of the pipe, tilting his head back. 

“John,” Macca said. 

The pirate gave him no response, instead blowing into the pipe grandly, and then placing it with great and unbearably slow care onto the ground.

“That good?” he asked. 

Ethelein smiled politely. “Yes. Thank you, John.” He directed his eyes to the ceramic bowl separating the pirate and the actor. “Now,” he said, letting a smile spread on his face. “onto the reading.” 

The sea witch pulled back the jewelry on his hands, making sure nothing would touch the couple’s flesh but a single one of his claws. “You must forgive me,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ve never done one of these before.” 

Macca had remembered that. Unfortunately, he had also remembered his response. “You haven’t?” He asked, less incredulous and more upset than he had been the first time around. 

Ethelein sighed. “No, I’m afraid not.” He met the other siren’s eyes. “The silent are not exactly one’s first choice for a soul reading.”

Macca blinked, his eyes dragging themselves towards the ground. He had cursed himself a million times over for asking that question at the time. He should have known, he thought. 

But since then, he had become less ashamed of the question itself, and instead found himself more ashamed of his friend’s response. 

It had grown to upset him greatly how silent sirens were treated by their peers, having raised a silent daughter himself. He had grown to realize, over time, that the discrimination they faced was not often about what others in their tribe did to them, but instead presented itself in what thoughts, words, and actions were deemed acceptable for them to think, say, and do. And a soul reading would certainly not be included among those. 

“I see.” Macca whispered, this time fully understanding the witch’s answer.

Ethelein nodded, not wanting to discuss the matter any further. “Now, each of you hold out your dominant hand.” 

Here Macca was more confident than John, swiftly extending his left arm so that his wrist faced Ethelein. But his mate hesitated, unsure of what he was doing. Macca watched him swallow once out of the corner of his eye. 

The sea witch leaned in towards them, his pointer finger curled in the air. And noticing John’s distrusting demeanor, he reassured him, “I just need a single drop of blood. It shan’t be very painful.” 

The human laughed nervously. “Maybe for him it shan’t!” he cried, an ounce of concern in his voice. 

Macca pat him on the shoulder with his right hand. “You’ll be fine, love.” 

John hummed a nonanswer, his eyes fixed on his lover’s wrist, burning a hole through Macca’s flesh.

Ethelein took gentle hold of his arm in one hand, and with the other, he drew a single, straight vertical line down the center with his claw. It was a skill he accomplished remarkably well, considering he had never properly learned to cut flesh before. 

As the other siren’s blood began to pool on the cut, the liquid just barely trickling off of his arm, Ethelein guided the limb over the bowl, turning it ever so tenderly in his hand, until a single red trail fell down the length of his flesh, becoming a single red drop in the bottom of the vessel.

It was unexplainably strange for Macca to feel the witch’s touch again, and yet at the same time, indescribably comforting. His fingers were cool as they pressed against the siren’s skin, his grip firm but gentle around his arm. Macca had forgotten just how sorely he missed the sea witch, at least the way he was when he had truly known him. That is to say, he missed the siren Ethelein; in no way did he long to see the witch’s ghost.

The living Ethelein—or, perhaps more realistically, Macca’s memory construct of Ethelein—wrapped a cold, damp piece of woven cloth around the siren’s cut, and warning him sternly not to remove it, tied five evenly-spaced strings over top the cloth, placing a bearable amount of pressure on the wound.

The siren traced the tips of his fingers over it, taking extreme precaution not to let one of his claws accidentally undo the strings. It was a skill Macca had gotten rather good at in those days, when he had to be very careful not to unintentionally stab John every time he touched him. 

But John, of course, could be untrusting of a siren’s touch, as in any other situation, a human most certainly should be. And so, as Ethelein repeated the process of cutting the wrist and allowing a single drop of blood to fall, he flinched. Though, being the proud man that he was, he acted as though he hadn’t.

Once the pair’s matching wounds had been properly bandaged, and Ethelein had given John the same strict warnings about undoing the cloth, if not more, the sea witch drew the bowl nearer to himself. This created a triangle, with each endpoint being a person, at the center of which stood the nearly empty bowl. 

The sea witch smiled to himself as he turned to the correct section of the book at his side, keeping a steady side-eye on it for the remainder of the ritual. He additionally drew near to him the various vials and containers of ingredients used in standard soul readings, which were laid neatly out for him on a smooth mat next to the book. 

“Onward we go, then,” he sighed, seemingly content. 

John met Macca’s eye, whispering. “Onward we go, indeed.” 

To this the siren offered a courtesy smile, but said nothing, instead keeping his focus on the ritual. He was nearly certain that his original reaction to the phrase had been much more intimate and exciting, but however surreal the dream felt, Macca would not let himself forget why he was having it in the first place. There was something in this memory that he was supposed to pick up on, at least according to the book Eschri had given him, and he was determined to pick up on it. 

So he watched with unblinking eyes as Ethelein poured a vial of clear water into the bowl, just enough to keep the blood visible, and sprinkled a pinch of powder made from crushed shells over top, likely angel wings. They were always used in a soul reading, the symbolism of them being that one needs two for the shells to truly live up to their namesake. 

After the shells he added thinly sliced leaves of red algae, said to bring accuracy to the reading through the intercession of Yomin, the Patron of Wisdom, and protect them from any meddling spirits that may be following the couple. 

Finally, Ethelein cupped a smooth, ovular piece of opal in his hands and raised it on high, tilting his head down towards his book as he asked a whole litany of deities and patrons, gods and goddesses, and even several historical magicians to grant him some of their divine insight into John and Macca’s souls. And with a single slow motion, he dropped the gem into the blood and water. 

Macca’s eyes followed it as it sank to the bottom, no one daring to say a word. For it was mutually understood between the two sirens that as soon as the opal’s full surfaced touched the bottom of the bowl—

The gem suddenly glowed white-hot, boiling the solution around it and absolutely captivating John, until both the gem and the water abruptly changed color, glowing an off-color cream. 

Ethelein scanned the pages of the book with his finger, until he eventually came across a section that seemed to clarify the color’s significance.

He raised his eyebrows. “Ah,” he said, nodding. “It says here that you’ve both experienced a great loss in your lives. Is that true?”

Macca simply nodded once, finding it rather ironic that in the time that had passed since the actual reading, he had lost both of the men around him. 

John, on the other hand, was rather uncomfortable with the notion. And it made sense. For as long as Macca had known him, he had observed that John was not a man that was willing to show his vulnerabilities, much less have someone else discover them for him. He squinted. “I have. My mother.”

Ethelein laughed nervously at the man’s response. “Good, good…” and then, his face flushing, he added, “Not to say that that is a good thing, necessarily! I only mean it’s good that the soul reading is accurate so far!”

“I understand,” John sighed. 

Ethelein stammered, and it seemed for a minute that he had something to add, but he quickly decided against it, not sure what else there was to be said. And so he waved his hand over the bowl in a sweeping motion, watching as a cloud of deep green mist surrounded the opal like a bubble. 

“This one I know,” the sea witch spoke slowly. “‘tis rather common…”

Macca swallowed. His mate cocked his head, suspicious. “What does it mean?”

Ethelein blinked. “All it means is that there is much envy between the two of you. And that doesn’t necessarily mean literal envy—”

Here he was cut off, and both his eyes and those of the pirate’s drew to Macca, who promptly met them, confused. 

The actor gaped, for once unsure of his line. He had been so focused on the soul reading, so caught up in the supernatural memory created by the  _ sje’inn’a’e _ that he had lost his charm, his poise, his ability to think on a whim. As he racked his brain to remember his quote, John let out a snicker.

“You’ve certainly got that right.” he smiled.

Macca said nothing.

Ethelein cleared his throat. “Well, it needn’t always be a  _ literal  _ envy of one another,” he said. “Perhaps you are envious of an object the other has, perhaps a concept even. It may not even be you that is envious! It could be another person that is envious of you...”

John whistled a low tune. “You mermen sure are symbolism fanatics, aren’t you?”

Allowing himself to be just slightly more lighthearted, Macca piped up. “You could say that, yes.”

His mate chuckled. “You gotta be careful about that where I come from.” he shrugged. “Lest people confuse you for a Catholic!”

Neither siren had any response for this, simply for the reason that they did not have any knowledge of the intricate workings and factions of Christianity, nor the immense political turmoil that accompanied it in Europe. So John was left to laugh at his own joke.

“I- I promise that would be funny to humans…” he wheezed. 

Ethelein smiled. “I’m sure it would be.” And directing his gaze back to the green mist in the bowl, he frowned. 

Macca watched his face with great care, studying the deep sadness that seemed to surround his pupils. 

“You must take this as a great warning,” he said, turning to the siren. “Believe me when I tell you, envy will tear you apart from the inside out.” 

Ethelein’s eyes drifted slowly towards John, meeting his for just a second before he broke contact. And again, in a single, swift motion, he waved his hand across the bowl. 

The opal glowed a brilliant white through the green mist, which rose to the surface of the water before turning blood-red. The color spread through the whole bowl, opaquing the gem at the bottom, still glowing like the sun. 

Ethelein furrowed his brow and quickly turned to his book, searching for an answer. 

“I’ve never seen this before…” he said in a hushed tone. “It looks like a tier three result, with the opal still shining like—” The sea witch trailed off with a small gasp. Macca watched as his eyes fell. He took a deep breath in, preparing himself for what he knew was to come.

“What is it?” John asked, his voice now cold and serious.

“The Curse of Time,” Ethelein sighed. 

Although the actor knew his line, he could not bring himself to say it. It was redundant, after all, to ask what it meant. He knew. And after so much time, he fully understood the meaning of the result. So he said nothing.

Still, the sea witch turned to face him. “It means one of you will live much of your life without the other…” he whispered.

John’s pupils dilated. “You mean one of us will die young?”

Ethelein shook his head wildly. “No! No! Well…erm... maybe…” 

John threw his hands in the air with a heavy sigh. 

“Oh! Come on now! It’s symbolism, remember? It could still be symbolic of something!” The magician looked off to the side. “Or perhaps I made a mistake. I’ve never done one of these before.” 

This seemed, if only partly, to satisfy the human, and so Ethelein cleared his throat. “I’m sure it isn’t that serious,” he said. “Now, why don’t we continue?”

Macca nodded half-heartedly. He felt his cheeks grow hot with anger. Ethelein had lied to him. It  _ was  _ that serious, and it was certainly no mistake. 

He brought his mind back to the morning he had received Yoko’s mysterious note. He had spent all day trying to decipher the strange human alphabet, consulting with librarians and professors, until he eventually decided to track down an English sailor. 

Once the man had drawn near enough to him, he did not slit his throat or drown him. Instead, he cleared his throat and asked in his best English if the sailor could read. 

He told him that he could, and when Macca handed over the note, he said a single word. Well, not a  _ word _ , per say. He said a name. He said John’s name. 

It was all that was written on it, which Macca had found admittedly strange. The few times his human friend had written to him, he had included at least a few more words. But, like every other note sent by the man, he assumed his presence was needed in New York. 

So he had traveled for days to the coast, swimming up alongside it until he reached the harbor. He had waited there for two more days, expecting John to come and get him, and bring him back to his house, as he had the other times Macca had traveled to see him.

But nobody came. And it was then that the siren realized something was horribly wrong. 

After four total days of waiting, Ringo arrived, holding in his hand the same note as Macca. 

He carried him through the city, the two of them getting lost along the way, until they stumbled upon a house that they decided was most likely John’s. 

So they knocked. But, confirming Macca’s worst suspicions, John did not answer. Instead, Yoko stood in the doorway with dark bags under her eyes. Their friend, as they came to find out, had been reduced to ashes in an urn on the woman’s table. 

That result, that Curse of Time, was no fluke. It wasn’t symbolic, either. It was a warning to the two of them, and one neither of them had appreciated. Ethelein had been a damned fool, saying it was a mistake.

Macca sighed, his eyes piercing the magician’s. There was no use still being angry with him— he was long gone. And, as much as he may not have liked to admit, he was a rather inexperienced witch. Perhaps he really had thought he had made a mistake when he read their souls. 

The siren decided he would just try to enjoy the rest of the dream. After all, he was able to see John and Ethelein again. And if he remembered correctly, the next result was extremely positive for the two of them.

As he recalled, it had been the blessing of Ansara, the patroness of love and friendship. Ethelein had told them he’d never seen anything like it, that it was a rather rare result. Because it meant that the two of them had a very strong bond, strong enough, apparently, to warrant the intercession of the deity.

Both of them had been thrilled to see it at the time, Macca more so than John. It just meant more to him, having grown up in the culture, hearing tales of the patroness. 

He remembered that moment being a very high point in his life, overshadowing the Curse of Time tenfold. And so he was pleased to realize that he was about to relive it.

Ethelein waved his hand again over the water but much to Macca’s surprise and dismay, the water did not change to the cool ivory he remembered, nor did the opal glow a brilliant rose. Instead, the green mist returned. 

The siren gasped, immediately drawing his attention away from the opal. He turned his eyes towards the floor, frantically studying the wooden boards.

That wasn’t what he had remembered. That was the  _ sje’inn’a’e’s _ sign. And as long as he didn’t acknowledge it, he would be safe. Macca swallowed. But that left just one question. What did it mean?

“Macca,” Ethelein cooed, his voice unnaturally high and hoarse. “Macca…”

The siren felt his skin grow cold. The sea witch’s eyes were laid directly on him, burning his flesh with their unblinking judgement. Around them, the whole world seemed to swell. John was nowhere to be seen, leaving Macca alone with the creature. His breathing picked up.

“Macca, Macca, Macca.” 

Macca studied the grain of the wood underneath him, counting the splinters and various imperfections in it, not daring to meet the beast’s gaze.

“Tabanni Macca,” it called, using his full title.

Macca blinked rapidly, his cheeks flaming. No matter what, he couldn’t give the  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ the satisfaction of acknowledgement. Doing so would spell certain doom for him, and possibly also the rest of his company in New York.

So there he sat, hunched over on the floor, his eyes locked on the wood, listening to the beast call his name for what felt like hours, until he opened his eyes and found himself curled up in a ditch at the bottom of the harbor.

His chest rose and fell quickly, his skin slick and cold. With his heart beating so loudly he could hear it pound, the siren said a silent prayer thanking whatever forces that may be for his safe return to reality. 

Carefully, still shaking, he poked around in the sand until he felt the familiar rough texture of his woven satchel. 

He dug through it, taking great care not to let his claws poke through the fabric, and eventually was able to find the book he had been looking for. 

Squinting, as his eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the dark, he read it. 

_ A Concise History of Sje’inn’a’e As Told By His Magical Excellency Chaplain Dranatch Yekte of the Foryan Convent  _

The chaplain was dreadfully fond of long titles, so it seemed, but Macca figured that as long as he could get what he needed from the text, it wouldn’t matter the title. 

Having found what he needed, he began to turn away. But in the dim light of the sunrise, just barely peeking through into his sandy niche, a bright flash of light in his satchel caught his attention. It had only shone for a few seconds, like a glimmer of light against the tide, but it was, in the same way as light on the sea, unbearably bright. 

He peered back into his satchel and felt his skin break out in goosebumps. For inside of the pouch, he was met with an old, slightly faded copper pendant in the shape of four intersecting parallelograms, in the center of which a snail shell had been welded— the tribal symbol of Riddidiya.

It was the same pendant he had left on the altar of Saruyo.


	17. The War of The Roses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sean and Julian lose their wits, and their minds along with them, in front of Sean’s fireplace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve realized that in the beginning of the fic, I call the ship Yoko and the Gang™️ were pirates on the King William’s Skull, but later on, it’s the Sgt. Pepper. Let’s all just collectively assume that I meant the Sgt. Pepper all along...
> 
> (Keir Moonrock and Co. is not responsible for any confusion or personal distress this may have caused, and will not accept any responsibility thereof.)
> 
> Oh also we reached the length of a novel now, so thank you to everyone who’s helped me with this! MonaLuisa, my beta reader, all of you who left Kudos or comments, but most importantly, you! Thank you for reading! It’s you guys that keep me going. Cause if you wanna read, then you bet your bottom dollar I wanna write!
> 
> Well, with that, on with the show!

It was on that same Sunday, the Sunday on which Macca dreamed of his and John’s soul reading, and then, having awoken, discovered Ethelein’s pendant in his satchel, that the War of the Roses began. 

Of course, the phrase ‘War of the Roses’ in this context, did not refer to the war fought by the Houses of Lancaster and York for the throne of England, and was ultimately won by the House of Tudor.

No, this War of the Roses, as it would soon come to be known, took place exactly two-hundred and fifty-five years after its end, in the city of New York, and began on that aforementioned Sunday morning, when Sean crept down the stairs and found Julian standing with his hands on his hips in front of his main fireplace.

This, in itself, was not special or noteworthy in any way, as the fireplace was, in the winter, a wonderful place to stand and admire the beauty of life, or perhaps exchange light-hearted banter. 

But it was not the placement of his brother that caught Sean’s attention. Rather, it was the wall he was staring at, the sight of which had undoubtedly caused him to become so confused.

As baffled as anyone at the scene in front of him, Sean walked towards the wall in a daze, stopping once he found himself next to Julian, and did the same as him, placing his hands squarely on his hips. 

For, the wall in front of them, the wall that contained the fireplace, was littered, in every sense of the word, with soft, crisp roses the color of the snow outside. They grew thickly over every inch of the bricks, excluding the fireplace, smothering it in a mess of green and white that did not end until it reached the wood of the floor. And even then, a few of the flowers had managed to spill over the edge, resting comfortably on the ground.

After a brief moment of awe, Sean pointed towards his new in-home botanical garden. 

“These weren’t here the other night,” he remarked casually.

His brother let out a high-pitched hum, his eyes squinting. “You don’t say.” 

“Did you see them appear?”

Julian tilted his head, shifting his weight to his right side. “No,” he sighed. “I awoke and came down to stoke the fire. Although when I arrived, I saw…” here the man gestured to the bushels of roses on the wall. “this.”

Sean approached the flowers, reaching out his hand to touch them. They were white, he thought. They were white roses, white like the dove, white like snow. The same white roses that the bird had brought him earlier. There was no doubt in his mind now, his suspicions were—

“I don’t know if you should do that,” Julian warned. “they could be dangerous.”

The younger man pulled back, stepping a foot behind, and turned to his brother. 

“They’re only roses,” he said. “they couldn’t be  _ that  _ bad.” 

His brother frowned, tapping his foot up and down impatiently. “It was flowers that dragged me into the river, and I’m willing to bet these would do the same to you.” 

“That was different, I’m sure,” Sean protested. “ _ I _ am not dreaming. At least, not that I know of…”

“Don’t you ever think you may be a tad  _ too  _ trusting? I mean, you certainly aren’t dreaming. And I know that because I am here with you.” Julian furrowed his brow. “But you find your wall covered in magical, and potentially dangerous roses, and your first instinct is to reach out and touch them?”

Sean shifted his gaze towards the rug. He inhaled sharply, and then, after a brief pause, slowly released his breath. He nodded understandingly, pulling his spectacles further up his nose as he did so. “I suppose you’re right.” 

“See?” Julian clasped his hands together. “Now, what do we do about these?”

Sean thought over the question. “Well, it may be for our benefit to figure out why they are here.” 

The two men’s eyes met, and without any hesitation, they reached a conclusion.

“It’s the bird.” They agreed, laughing in spite of themselves.

Julian looked over the wall, his eyes scanning up and down and side to side. “Do you think it’s some kind of sign?”

Sean hummed. “It must be… But if that’s the case, then Macca would have our heads for messing with them.”

This made his brother laugh. “Well, you’re certainly right about that.” He reached into his pocket, and with a careful hand, drew a wooden-handled folding knife. With a click, he drew its blade, the metal gleaming in the soft sunlight. “But I still wonder…” 

With a cautious step, he moved towards the wall.

Sean crossed his arms. “Who’s too trusting now?” 

Julian squinted. “It’s worth a shot, isn’t it?” 

Sean just sighed, completely and utterly defeated.

Finally reaching the edge of the wall, where a thick bramble of the milky roses grew, Julian extended his blade. In a swift, sweeping motion, he let the metal cut off one of the flowers, its petals falling like a sheet of paper to the ground. 

But as soon as the rose touched the wood of the floor, in the tense stillness of the room, a new flower sprung into existence, uncurling itself from its tiny center, lying in the same position the one on the floor had been. 

“What are we supposed to do now?” Sean asked, quietly. 

Julian sighed and put away his knife. “There’s not much that we  _ can _ do, really. Except pray, I suppose.” 

The younger man laughed, amused by the idea. “I’m afraid I’m not much of a prayer.” 

“Of course not. But it still may do you some good.”

Sean shook his head, smiling. “Thank you for the offer, but I’d rather not.” 

“It  _ is  _ a Sunday, you know.”

“You speak like Sir Harrison.” The younger man chided.

Julian shut his eyes. “And what a righteous man he is. You know, even with his paganism or whatever it is.” 

And shrugging at the notion, he walked towards the coat rack, from which he pulled his tattered brown cloak.

Sean ran after him. “If it pleases you to go and seek the counsel of God, then I shall not stop you. But, please—”

“Oh, no, if you ask me,” Julian wrapped his cloak around himself, seemingly unaware that Sean had not asked him. “then we should both be going.”

Sean became serious. “And if you ask me, then that is the last thing we need.”

“Why’s that?” Julian produced a pair of gloves from his pocket, which he swiftly pulled onto his exposed hands. “If it  _ is  _ Ethelein that’s causing this, which it most certainly is, and he is a demon, then it would be for our benefit to pay a visit to a church. And isn’t it better if both of us are able to ward him off? Instead of just one?”

The younger man pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger, pushing his spectacles ever so slightly. “I do not disagree with that, per say, but please, for the sake of all you hold holy, do hear me out.”

Julian blinked, shifting his weight, and so Sean continued.

“The last thing anyone in this town wants—myself included—is for me to step foot inside a church. You seem to have forgotten my reputation around here.” 

“Is there something I don’t know about?” Julian said, raising an eyebrow with suspicion.

Sean sighed. “No, no, it’s not that.” Here he gestured towards the rose-covered wall. “And now is not exactly a time ripe for humor.” 

“My apologies.” Julian muttered.

“It matters not. What I mean is, it would be a rather startling sight for most people in this town to see me in such a place.” He waved a hand at his face. “You know, no one ever really got over the whole witch hunt thing.”

Julian’s face fell. “Right.” he said, shaking his pointing hand. 

Sean went on. “You’d be surprised, actually, how heavily the townspeople latched onto the idea.” He furrowed his brow. “And I suppose they aren’t to blame. What can I say? It makes a good story.”

Julian hummed, tapping his foot again. “Well, I’m already dressed for the cold.” 

“Go, if you wish, to the church. I will not stop you.”

To this the older man laughed. “You forget that I know not the way.”

Sean nodded, a slight smile crossing his face. “You really just won’t give up, will you?”

“I’m only stating a fact.”

The younger man sighed and grabbed his cloak. He tied it quickly around himself, replaced his shoes for boots, and, much like Julian, dug into his pocket to find his gloves. 

“You are awfully persistent.” Sean chuckled, drawing the gloves over his hands. And without another word, he pushed open the door.

The two were immediately faced with a cold gust of wind, causing Julian to let out an awestruck sigh. His breath turned to fog in the frozen air, leaving his mouth in thick clouds. 

Sean laughed at the sight of his brother struggling in the harsh weather. “It’s rather warm, today, you know.”

Julian squinted, closing the door behind them. “Is this what you call warm?”

He shrugged. “It’s warmer than it has been.”

The sound of horse hooves approached them from behind. The two turned around to see a man in fur riding a black stallion, a rifle slung across his shoulder. Sean smiled.

“Fair morrow, Mister Sherwood!” he cried, raising an arm to greet the hunter. “How are your daughters?” 

Sherwood grumbled something unintelligible as he passed the two, not meeting their eyes.

As the horse, and thus the man, moved further ahead of them, Sean sighed. 

“Oh, that Sherwood…” he said. “you’ve just gotta love him.”

Julian chuckled uncomfortably. “I suppose so.” 

“Yes, yes,” Sean laughed. “it’s just like I told you! The whole witchcraft thing, that is. People just love it.” 

“Even after all this time?” 

Sean drew his spectacles nearer to his eyes, which he cast towards the side, admiring the way the snow rested on the tree branches. “Yes, I’m afraid so.” He took a deep breath. “But it matters not. It will never be as serious as it was in the past, and I’ve got an apprenticeship and a roof over my head. So I’m rather content.”

Julian nodded, admiring Sean’s humility. 

Suddenly his brother piped up, changing the subject. “Have you found anything interesting in the journals?”

Julian’s eyes bulged. He let out a nervous laugh. “Interesting? Yes. But useful in stopping that blasted bird? Not at all.” He sighed. “It’s as though I’ve found everything I never wanted nor needed to see.”

Sean raised his eyebrows. “Any mention of that incident the young Sir Harrison described?”

The older man shook his head at the thought. “Unfortunately, yes. But all the better, then, that we are on our way to church.”

Sean looked at Julian, incredulous. “Then you mean to say it was true?”

“I already told you it was,” Julian squinted. “although I understand your doubt.”

Sean said nothing, so the older man cleared his throat. In his mind, he was debating whether to continue. There was much more he could say about John, and it wasn’t exactly flattering information. But if he spoke, he rationalized, he would have to be very careful what he said. Because in the end, Julian had no way of knowing how much Sean knew about their father. And if he didn’t know that, then he also didn’t know how he remembered the man; perhaps horribly, or wonderfully, quixotically, or honestly. 

If he continued, then he would truly be at the mercy of chance. He would either say something Sean would find grotesquely offensive, or confirm something the young man already knew. Either way, his conscience deduced, he  _ would  _ be telling the truth. Who was he to keep the truth from his younger brother? 

He sighed. It was a good point, that much was clear. But it begged a very important and difficult to answer question. Just because the truth  _ can  _ be spoken, does that mean it should be?

Julian blinked, watching his boots move along the street, and swallowed. He decided to leave himself at the hand of chance. And so he began, rather vaguely, with, “He did many things.” 

Sean laughed awkwardly. “Yes, I suppose he did. But I had never thought buggery with a sea witch was one of them.”

“Well, you said you knew about him and Macca. It’s not really a far stretch to imagine...”

The younger man let out a deep breath. “You make a good point.” he said. Julian was unable to trace exactly how Sean was feeling. This annoyed him greatly, as in order to continue the conversation, he had to be able to tell when to stop talking. 

He furrowed his brow. “There were many things he did,” he repeated. “and a lot of them you may not have heard.”

Sean slowed his pace. His eyes met those of his brother’s. 

“Or- or perhaps you have!” Julian interjected. “Perhaps you have…”

Sean tilted his head slightly, not breaking eye contact with the older man. He spoke softly, his voice raising at the end of the sentence. “Are you trying to tell me something?”

Julian flushed. “All I mean,” he stammered. “is that there certainly are other things about him you were never told.” A beat of silence passed. In a hushed tone, he continued. “What exactly  _ do  _ you remember about him?”

Sean pursed his lips, finally casting away his gaze to the houses on their left. He blinked, and with a sigh, began, “Not too much, I’m afraid. Although he was nice, from what I can recall. Very considerate.” 

He looked around him, and discovering that they were fast approaching the center of town, asked, “Now which church are you going to go to?”

Julian was caught off-guard by the sudden shift of focus, and so he didn’t speak.

Sean elaborated. “Catholic’s off down the road to the right, Anglican’s in the market square, I think there’s a Puritan church somewhere by the docks… though it’s rather small…”

“Oh, yes! Um—”

“Presbyterian church is back past Hocke’s bakery.” Sean squinted. “Or maybe it’s Lutheran… I’m not too sure…”

Julian cleared his throat. “Just take me to the Anglican church, if you would.”

“Certainly.” 

The two fell silent, walking along the street towards the market square. Every once in a while another person, or perhaps a man on horseback, would pass them, providing some much-needed white noise.

About two minutes passed in the tense stillness before Sean asked, “What do  _ you _ remember about him?” 

Julian nodded, furrowing his brow. “Well, I didn’t see him too much. He was always out at sea or whatnot.”

“But when you did?” 

The older man hummed. “Each time was different, but overall…” he trailed off, his eyes cast downward at the ground. “I’m not sure. You know, he wasn’t exactly the  _ best _ father.”

Sean stared out in front of him, his face blank. The two stepped forward, with no further dialogue, into a large open plaza full of empty stalls. A beggar sat on the side of the street opposite the two men, smoking a pipe. 

A butcher’s shop was to their right, accompanied by a tailor, a cobbler, a chandler, and a silversmith. To their left, Gillis’s bakery, a watchmaker, a hatmaker, a carpenter, and a glass-smith. 

And directly in front of them, watching over all of the shops with its towering shadow, was the church. Saint Alfred’s Church, more specifically.

Sean placed a hand on his forehead, trying to shield his eyes from the sun. “Well,” he announced. “here we are. I suppose I’ll meet you back here once…” 

He trailed off at the sound of a heavy set of doors opening. He turned to the church in front of them, only to find a crowd of people spilling out of it onto the stairs. Women in colorful dresses, jackets, and hats, holding young children tight against their breast in the cold, men accompanying them in heavy cloaks and boots, all tumbling down onto the stairway.

“Once the service ends…”

Julian let out a low whistle. “Didn’t think I was that late.” He chuckled. “Maybe we  _ are  _ cursed.”

“Maybe you just weren’t meant to go.”

The older man frowned. “There is no such thing.” And grabbing Sean by the arm, he began to trudge up the stairs, past the men and women in their cloaks and bonnets. “I may be a sailor,” he shouted, trying to rise above the noise of the people around him. “but I am no heathen.” He turned around slightly to face his brother. “No offense.”

Sean was more confused than anything. As he apologized to those around them, both for pushing through them, and for entering the church, he muttered, “None taken.”

Inside, the church was a spectacle of colors, illuminated by the sun streaming in through the stained glass windows, the most brilliant of which laid at the front of the room, encased behind the altar. It depicted three men. To the left, the church’s namesake, Saint Alfred the Great. To the right, the patron saint of England, Saint George. And in between the two, an image of the risen Jesus of Nazareth, above which hung a large cross.

It was still inside, quiet. The brothers were the only people still left in the building, as far as they knew. 

Julian walked through the church with a mouselike step, sliding unnoticed into a back pew. 

Sean stayed behind by the doors, his eyes darting wildly across the room. “I shouldn’t be in here.” he muttered. “I really shouldn’t be in here…”

Julian turned to him, reciting what he had heard many times from his mother. “If you must speak in a church, then you must speak softly.” Heavens, he thought. He sounded just like her.

Sean approached him, stopping behind the pew. His eyes still searched the room, taking in the sight. “You don’t understand. It will not end well for anyone if I am found in here.”

The older man shut his eyes. “No one shall find you,” he reassured. “we are the only ones in here.”

To this Sean had no reply. For although one could never be too sure, as far as he was aware, they were, by all means, alone. And so, cautiously, he sat down in the pew next to Julian.

He stared at his hands, planted carefully in his lap. In a word, he was uncomfortable. He felt as though the eyes of the saints were all cast on him, watching him, and emitting their judgement upon him, for it was in their name, as well as that of their God’s, that the townspeople had first accused his family of witchcraft. 

He cleared his throat, and speaking softly, just as Julian had told him to, he said, “You said he was not a good father.”

Julian met his gaze. 

“What did you mean by that, exactly?”

The older man let out a long, low hum. A sign to Sean that he was deep in thought. You see, so often in the past few months had he responded to a query, or a proposition, or even a statement with humming that Sean had been able to decode each pitch and length’s meaning. And this one was always interesting. It meant he was confused by the question, a meaning that somewhat annoyed Sean.

“That’s a tricky thing to answer,” Julian stammered. 

The younger man squinted, frustrated with his brother’s nonanswers and vague language. “Oh, don’t you answer me in riddles…”

Julian drew back, hurt. “My apologies.”

Sean sighed. His brother was a sensitive man, as he had come to learn. He had to be patient with him, patient as a wildcat in the grass. “‘‘Tis no problem at all.” he assured. A beat passed. “Do continue.” 

“Right.” the older man blinked. “What I mean is— he was a very complicated fellow. Over time, you see, he changed. He-” Julian stammered. “He was always better to you than he was to me. Now, granted, I’m not completely sure if that was  _ change _ …” he frowned. “Maybe it was just favoritism...”

Sean cast his gaze to his boots.

Julian flushed. “My apologies, that- that was uncalled for.” He rested a hand on his chin, leaning back against the wood of the pew. “You must understand, he left for sea when I was but a babe, with little notice to my mother. So I grew up without him, for the most part. By the time he returned I had learned to walk and speak; all manner of things…” Julian sighed. 

“And by that point he was already with Macca! And the Captain—your mother— too, perhaps… oh, hell, and the  _ bird _ ! It just-” He ran a hand through his hair. “It just doesn’t make sense, then, that—”

Sean interrupted him, finishing his sentence. “That I was raised the way I was.” 

Julian’s eyes fell. He blinked. “Yes, yes, that’s it.” He gave a nervous laugh, crossing his arms. “It doesn’t make sense to me that he was so good to you and your mother. Not when he cast myself and my mother aside like that.” He rubbed at his face, his eyes sad and lost in thought, before he added, “You know, when I met you, I hated you.” 

The younger man looked up.

“I  _ wanted _ to hate you.” Julian cleared his throat. “But, you know, you were so small. You were just a boy! I couldn’t hate you. Not when you were that small… And you hadn’t even done anything to me but exist!”

The younger man nodded. “You wouldn’t be the only one to think that, then.”

Julian blinked. “No! No! Don’t you say that!”

“Well I won’t lie to you. The people of this town, or at least, a good lot of ‘em, think I’m a witch. They think I’m the witches’ son, you know. And they’re really not too fond of me for that. Even if the whole concept of the ‘Witches of New York’ was one of their creation.”

Julian sighed, exasperated. “I’m sorry, then, that they think that. You don’t deserve that.”

“No one deserves that.” Sean muttered.

“You know,” Julian said ,his eyes fixed on the altar ahead of them. “for one time in his life, I think our father was right. I was wrong to hate you.”

Sean chuckled. “Well, you don’t still feel that way, do you?”

“No, no. Not in the slightest.” Julian turned to him, meeting his eyes. And looking into them, Sean saw that they bled with sincerity. “And I need you to know that, above all else.” 

It was true. It was truer than anything in Heaven or Hell, that he needed Sean to understand. For without his acceptance of the sentiment being long gone, Julian was unable to move past it. He  _ couldn’t  _ move past it. Not after seeing him in his dream the other night. He had been so much younger, so unconcerned with the world. And, more importantly, he couldn't make sense of Julian’s and John’s conversation. 

But those days were long gone. Sean had lost his starry notions and quixotic visions of the world in the time between then and now. Now, Julian thought, he would be able to make sense of it all, and understand him when he told him, with every intent of sincerity and honesty, that those spiteful days of his youth were far behind him.

The older man broke eye contact then, turning instead to the large glass window at the front of the church, meeting the eyes of Christ. “Listen to me when I tell you this,” he said, waving a pointed hand in the air. “that envy will kill you. There’s no fun in living your life to spite another person. You have to be at peace with other people, you know. ‘Cause you can’t make them change. Be at peace with yourself, too... In Macca’s words,  _ Yana ut yana-zafti _ . Live and let live.” He nodded. “Live and let live…” 

Sean sighed, taking in the cool air of the church. He lifted his head finally, allowing himself, for just a second, to be completely and utterly at peace. The sun shone outside, the sunlight was streaming in in a dizzying array of colors, and all was well with the world. 

That is, until a young man, his hair the color of a tangerine, his blouse the color of ink, burst in, clearing his throat just a tad too loudly for the brothers’ liking.

“Good morning,” he said, his voice thin and harsh, like a fork scraping against a plate. “I’m afraid you’ve missed the service.”

Julian blinked. “Yes, we’re aware. We were only—”

“I’m sure you were.” The priest cut off. “But I believe you should get going now, shouldn’t you?” He smiled frantically, his eyes locked on Sean. “Shouldn’t you be going?

Sean nodded, and stood up immediately. He turned to his brother. “Yes, we should. And we will. Come on.” He motioned for Julian to follow him.

“But we just got here…”

Sean shook his head, a signal to Julian to ignore that fact and move on. Julian, however, wasn’t very pleased to surrender his right to be in the house of God, and so, for an eternally long minute, he stayed right where he was.

“Oh, parting is such sweet sorrow!” The priest cried, quoting Shakespeare. “But it is a necessity, and if it is not met soon, then I will have to take up the matter with the constabulary.”

Sean sighed. “Come, Julian. We don’t want to stick around here.”

Julian furrowed his brow, but stood up obediently. He turned around to get one last glance at the church before they left, pushing open the heavy doors into the cold.

As the two stepped down the large stone stairs, Sean turned to him. 

“I told you we’d be caught.” he said matter-of-factly. “It was really only a matter of time.”

Julian shook his head. “It’s not very polite to kick someone out of a church…”

The younger man shrugged. “It is if that someone’s a…” he hushed himself for dramatic effect, lowering his head and leaning in. “ _ witch _ .”

Julian sighed. The two ventured silently through the abandoned marketplace, past the shops and stalls, and the beggar smoking a pipe. They trudged without a word along the street, past horses and passerby, and made their way into the forest, walking along the same path, with their same footsteps, until they finally reached the house. 

And it was here, right when his hand pressed against the wood of the door, that Sean decided to speak. He turned to Julian, but did not look him in the eye, a serious expression on his face. “Thank you,” he said. “for telling me about our father.

Julian blinked. “Oh, yes. Anytime. Anytime…” He tapped his foot. “Now open that door before I contract hypothermia again!”

Sean let out a stifled laugh. “Right, well, I really am very thankful.” His eyes met Julian’s. “Please know that.” 

Julian nodded. “I do.”

“Good.”

The door swung open, and the brothers were met with a blast of warm air from the rose-engulfed fireplace, which they drew to like moths to a flame.

  
And so, with that, Julian and Sean had returned to exactly where they had been. In the latter’s house, standing in front of the fireplace, gazing quietly at the wall in front of them, marbled with patches of green and white. 

And so began the War of the Roses.


	18. Thirty-Three Books and a Sunflower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Julian finally finds it.

A total of thirty-three books were spread out on the carpet, organized into three rows of eleven. Each journal had been meticulously placed; categorized into chronological order. That, of course, meant that the final entry, or final day, of the first journal would be preceded by the next day, or the first entry, in the second. 

Over and over the pattern repeated itself, as days bled into weeks, months, and years, just as ink bled through the thin paper. But like most observable patterns, laws, and hypotheses, there was one fundamental flaw. A sort of exception to the rule, if you will. A gap in the timeline, and thus, a missing piece of the knowledge that could be obtained from it.

A total of three times did these gaps appear, with the first two appearances being promptly explained by the author upon his return to writing. The first was a gap in the timeline between the 13th of July, 1703, and the 2nd of December of that same year. It was explained, in John’s own words, as follows:

_ 13th of July, 1703 _

_ It has been dreadfully long since I have written anything, has it not? As much as I would have loved to, and believe me, much has happened that I must record, I found myself rather ill-prepared for this voyage across the sea. What I mean by that is summed up in the following phrase: One will quickly run out of pages to fill in a journal while on the water, and much quicker will the realization dawn on him that a new journal cannot be found at sea. _

_ So, since I had found myself, this past summer and autumn, in the above situation, I had written nothing. What has happened in those seasons, I will try with all my brains, containing all my wit, to recall, and shall record a summary of it on the following few pages. May I never need to refer to it, for it shall undoubtedly be ripe with err.  _

So, needless to say, that hiatus made sense. As did the second one, shorter this time, spanning from the 21st of February, 1712, to the 1st of March, which John explained, with little summary, as he felt it would be dull to write, that he had fallen ill, and thus was bedridden for ten days, unable to record anything of note. 

Those two examples were all well and good, properly explained and of little interest to Julian. But the third was unlike them. You see, the third exception to this rule of continuity was the last page of the last journal John had ever written, creating a gap spanning from the 28th of June, 1719, all the way until the present. And that  _ would _ make sense, seeing as how the dead cannot move, speak, or write, but this particular instance was special.

What was strange about the journal, though, was that it came to a clean end, almost as though John knew his death was upon him, and wanted to wrap everything up with a nice ribbon. And if he had, in fact, died shortly after its completion, as this suggested, then that would mean he died in the summer, which Julian knew for a fact was untrue. 

Observe: 

_ 28th of June, 1719 _

_ I received a letter from George today. It’s the first I’ve heard from him since we departed from Madras in the summer. It was rather lengthy, in truth, although I was more than happy to read it.  _

_ He wrote that his wife and, might I remind you,  _ **_illegitimate_ ** _ son have been well, both in good health since the birth, and that his aforementioned  _ **_illegitimate_ ** _ son is growing up fine and strong. I am, of course, happy to hear it, and in my response, which I drafted just a moment ago, I told him this.  _

_ He also wrote that he does severely miss the company of the crew, particularly the mermen. He wrote that he wished he could write to them; that if he had thought to teach Ringo how to read English while we were at sea, he would have. Alas, he never did, and he curses himself for it.  _

_ And I suppose I cannot blame him for that. It would be nice to hear from  _ _ Macca more often. Just not too often.  _

_ In other news, Madame Dawson’s eldest son has been ordained a priest. She made sure to let me know as I passed by her door on my way to the well. She really just could not contain her excitement. I think she’s waiting for him to be ordained an exorcist… that way she could finally send one after us. That blasted woman. _

And there the entry, and, supposedly, John’s life, ended. Nothing grand, and no carry-over to another journal. Just a plain report of a dull summer day. 

Julian had read the page time and time again, trying in vain to find a logical conclusion to the puzzle that was its very nature.

In the end, he came up with three separate solutions. Three explanations for why there was no next journal. The first, and the one he believed to be most plausible, was that he had forgotten the thirty-fourth journal when he had taken the others from his stepmother’s house. It would have been easy enough to do, and so it would not surprise him if that was the case. 

The second conclusion he came to was that Yoko may have placed the final journal in a separate location from the others, perhaps sometime after John’s death. She had been so distraught after he died, Julian thought, that she may have just taken it and hidden it somewhere, not wanting to even see it. Then, when Julian had collected the others, she had forgotten to tell him where it was.

And the third was the most troubling to the man. The third conclusion he drew was that the journal may have been destroyed. Burned, perhaps, by the townspeople, as, according to Sean, they were still very convinced of John being a witch. This was troubling, of course, because if it had happened, then the journal could not be retrieved. Luckily for Julian, however, it was also the least plausible.

But each of the answers he came to brought with them a question, and not one that was easy to answer. 

If he had forgotten to grab the journal, or if Yoko had forgotten to give it to him, then that meant he had to find it. But where was it?

And if it had been destroyed, who did it exactly, and why? Was there something written inside he wasn’t meant to see? Something, he wondered, that could have caused the bird to appear? 

Julian’s mind buzzed. If that were the case, then it only brought more questions. What was it that he wasn’t meant to see? Why did it awaken the bird? And, perhaps more importantly, why had the bird only appeared twenty years  _ after  _ John’s death? 

The latter question led him to a frightening new one, a deep, dark, rabbit hole he was unwilling to explore.

He wondered, had the bird—had  _ Ethelein _ played a role in his father’s murder? 

The two of them were clearly linked. They had been well-acquainted in their lifetimes, even going so far as to have an affair. But to think that the sea witch could have caused John’s death? Julian wondered if Ethelein could have brought himself to. He wasn’t exactly nice, at least not from what he had seen in his dream, but could his conscience really bear the strain of knowing he had been the cause of a man’s untimely death? Julian sighed, his mind melting under the sudden realization. Did Ethelein, in the demonic form he was currently in, even have a conscience? How long had he been in his  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ form?

He took a deep breath, trying to ignore the many questions he had. They didn’t really matter, he thought. For the time being, he didn’t need to worry about the thirty-fourth journal. Whether it was back in Yoko’s dresser, or a ditch somewhere, or reduced to a pile of ashes, it didn’t matter to him.

Macca had given him a very clear, very simple task; to find the sea witch’s prophecy. And from what the siren had told him, it was written at the time of Ethelein’s death. According to the four members of the company that had been original crew members on the  _ Sgt. Pepper _ , that had been sometime in the summer while they were in India. Macca and Ringo told him that it was late in the “peak of the sun”, presumably meaning late in the summer, and Yoko had specifically mentioned that it had happened after Queen Anne’s ball, which Julian had discovered from his earlier readings took place in February of 1707.

That, the man deduced, placed the witch’s death somewhere late in the summer of 1707. 

He stood in front of the thirty-three books with a hand on his chin. With everything he had learned, whether he wanted to or not, he would now finally be able to find the description of Ethelein’s death, and with it, his prophecy.

Julian focused his gaze on the top row. The first journal in it, the first journal of all of them, he remembered, began on the 23rd of August with his parents’ marriage, shortly before his birthday in April of 1703. 

He smiled. If the first started in 1703, then that meant he was close. But how close, exactly? For that he needed to take a look at the last journal in the row. 

He walked over to it, stepping carefully over the others, and bent down to pick it up. Still on his knees, he flipped through the pages, ten at a time, until he reached the leathery back of the cover. He turned back a page. 

_ 11th of February, 1711 _

_ Yoko still hasn’t come home. I fear _

1711, he thought. He was getting warmer. He stood up smiling, and slowly made his way towards the center of the row. 

His eyes panned back and forth across it, studying each cover with care. If his estimation skills were up to par, then that put the journal from the summer of 1707 about four titles from that of the last one. 

He counted meticulously, one, two, and three, until he came upon the fourth book. With eager eyes and greedy hands, he grabbed it, and turned past a drawing of Macca to find the first entry.

_ 7th of March, 1707 _

_ All day and all night George has been  _

Eureka. 

Julian felt his mouth pull back into an obliviously large grin, and, making great haste, began to flip through the pages, just barely glancing at the dates. 

_ 29th of May, 1707 _

_ I was thinking earlier about what the _

He grew dizzy, passing by drawings and poems and journal entries, blinking rapidly.

_ 7th of July, 1707 _

_ Ringo has discovered that we will soon _

July, he thought. It could have been late July…

_ 24th of July, 1707 _

_ Ethelein arrived this morrow for the  _

Or maybe not. Julian sighed, a hint of frustration coming out with the breath, and skipped ahead in the journal.

_ 26th of August, 1707 _

_ I asked the Captain this evening what  _

That was when he saw it. There it was, written plainly in black ink upon the faded and yellowing next page. His eyes grew wide.

_ 27th of August, 1707 _

_ Ethelein is dead. It was in the  _

  
In spite of himself, and the solemn nature of the entry, Julian began to laugh, for, after a whole seven days of searching, some of which he was incapacitated with pneumonia, he had found it. He had found the ultimate treasure, the prophecy of Ethelein, and that meant he was one step closer to banishing his ghost. 

His eyes had just barely traveled down the page when he heard the front door open with a click. 

Julian furrowed his brow, listening intently for who might have entered the house. For, as far as he knew, Sean had not left.

A deep voice, muffled by both the distance between them and Julian’s poor hearing, called out in a strange accent, “Julian and Sean? Are you here?”

Julian smiled. It was only Ringo. 

“Yes!” he called out. “I’m just in the guest room upstairs! Now come on, I have something to show you!”

He bounced his foot up and down impatiently, waiting for the octopus-man to arrive, when he heard his voice again, nearer this time.

“Please open the door,” Ringo instructed. “I have my hands full at the moment.”

Julian stepped over the remaining thirty-two journals, careful not to move them, towards the door, and with a single excited motion, turned the knob and pulled it open. 

In front of him, he was somewhat surprised to see both Ringo and Macca, the latter being held in the former’s arms, dripping wet on Sean’s carpet. 

“Come in, come in!” He smiled and moved out of the mermen’s path. “But not too close. I have all the journals out on the floor.” 

Ringo kept his eyes on the array of books to his left, and gently placed Macca, who Julian noticed held a strange geometric pendant in his hands, onto the bed.

The siren sat up. “You said you wanted to show us something?” 

Julian waved the seventh journal, still open to the 27th of August, at them. “You bet.” 

Ringo’s eyes grew wide. “Did you find it?” he asked. “Did you find the prophecy?” 

“I did,” Julian laughed. “just a second ago.”

The octopus-man drew near to Macca, holding onto his arm as though it would save his life. Macca did the same to him, leaning his body forward to try and get a better look at the journal, even though he couldn’t understand its contents.

Both of the mermen then began to speak at once, an unintelligible cacophony to Julian. They went back and forth in desperate tones, an exchange of higher and lower pitched voices, as Julian tried in vain to calm them, until a third voice interrupted.

Julian turned around to see Sean in the doorway. 

“One at a time, please,” he said, swatting a hand nonchalantly at the mermen to quiet them. 

“What’s going on in here?” Sean asked, crossing his arms. 

Macca advanced towards the edge of the bed, leaning further to see the young man. “Julian found Ethelein’s prophecy,” he boasted.

Sean walked into the room, choosing to sit on the bed next to the siren. “Is that so?”

Macca nodded frantically. “Yes, and it’s absolutely essential that we read it.” He blinked once. “So it’s a very good thing you’re here.”

Something cold and wet poked at Julian’s shoulder. He shuddered, turning around to see Ringo, one of his tentacles curled and in the air. 

“Well,” he said, his voice urgent. “go on and read it.” 

Julian cleared his throat, still alarmed by the feel of the limb on his body. “Right,” he said. And taking a deep breath, he began. 

“The twenty-seventh of August, seventeen-hundred-seven.” he read. “Ethelein is dead. It was in the afternoon that we discovered this, right after we boarded the ship.

“George and Ringo were fooling around by the tub, which Macca rested in, laughing at their immaturity, when I caught sight of a little red cat I had never seen before. In its mouth, as I recall, it carried a little oceanic book— the same as Ethelein’s. 

“As I met its eyes, and it met mine, it began to walk nearer to me.  It crept until it reached the tub, by which point it had drawn all of our attention, placed its book on the ground, and looked up at Macca. He looked down at it, and then, I swear on my life, it began to speak.

“It spoke with the voice of a woman, at first in the mermen’s native tongue, and then, after a ritual not unlike that Ethelein performs,” Here Julian stammered. “Um, forgive me,” he said, breaking from his recitation. “ _ performed _ .”

“Go on,” Macca urged, his voice barely audible.

“Right! After a ritual not unlike that Ethelein performed, the cat turned to us and began to speak English. 

“She told us her name, although I’m afraid I know not how to spell it, and introduced herself as a witch of the sea. She said she was from Riddidiya, and that she came bearing a message for myself and Macca.

“She told us that she worked with Ethelein. She was his chaplain. 

“And then she asked us if he had read our souls. To this, Macca answered that he had, and her face turned somber. She told us quietly that he had, in her words, broken the magical code for the reading of souls. Macca asked her how so. 

“It was then she revealed that he had looked back into our souls, adding his own blood to the water.”

Macca blinked, his glaring eyes cast to the ground.

Julian continued. “I did not understand this at first, but Macca was red with fury. He explained to me later that doing that is highly frowned upon in their society, seeing as a soul reading contains such intimate information, and that it could have gotten Ethelein removed from his position. I am, of course, still not upset with this. But I digress. 

“Macca asked the cat a whole barrage of questions, demanding to know where he was and what she was going to do about it. It was then that she tensed.”

Ringo held tighter onto Macca’s arm.

“She gave her deepest condolences, and said she regretted to inform us that Ethelein had died. An incredulous hush went across the four of us before George finally asked how.

“According to her, he poisoned himself with a tonic to aid him in sleep, likely on accident. She thinks he was trying to get to us, but grew too weak, and fell into the sea midway through.

“His body was found not far from their convent, she said, and he had taken his book with him. It was then that she rested a paw on it.

“She told us he explained what happened inside, and that she strongly suggested we read the last entry.

“Well, we did, and as it would be, when Ethelein read our souls for the second time, along with his own, he found something extremely unusual. Very unlike his original ritual. 

“He seems to have foretold some kind of prophecy, like those in the Book of Revelations. We aren’t able to decipher it, at least not yet, but I’ve written down Macca’s English translation of it on the final page of this journal.”

The mermen sprung up. “Read it,” they urged. “please read it.”

Julian nodded and turned to the back cover, directing his eyes to the page just before it. He cleared his throat, turning three pairs of eyes intently onto him.. “The prophecy of Ethelein Nebiyatec e’Riddidiya,” he read.

From there on Julian spoke, with a face of stone, of mystical things. Stars and supernovas, strawberries and roses, rye and ravens, sunflowers, and gold and gems the likes of which one could only imagine. He told the tale of the bird-tamer, who awoke to find himself among one thousand flowers, searching eternally for an answer he could not find. 

And as he spoke, he noticed Macca’s face began to contort. His cheeks paled, turning as white as the roses downstairs, and his brow furrowed, leaving deep wrinkles on his forehead. 

When the prophecy had finally been retold in full, he was the first to speak, his voice coming out in a whisper. 

“I don’t understand,” he said. “it should have made more sense by now…”

Ringo placed a hand on his back to comfort him. “I know not if it will ever make sense,” he muttered. “but we must try to understand it.” 

Julian let his eyes wander back over the words of the prophecy. “It seems like Ethelein understood it.” 

At this Macca became frustrated. He put a hand to his head, pulling it back through his hair. “Ethelein isn’t here!” he cried. “He can’t help us!”

Just as Julian stepped back and began to mumble an apology, Sean stuck out his hand to the siren. 

“Then we’ll figure it out ourselves.” He said in an even tone. He stood up, leaning an arm against the wall. “The sunflower was what stuck out to me, among other things… It seems like a good place to start.” He turned to Julian. “Do you think you could read that bit again?” 

His brother nodded. “Certainly.” And after a minute of searching, he began. “The sunflower shall live on,” he said, “bearing one heir with the Lady Madras. He has fought valiantly for that he believed, rivaling the unjust and misguided, and shall one day disappear in a gray haze.” 

The four of them mulled over this. 

“Madras…” Ringo muttered. “That’s in India.” 

The others nodded, mumbling their agreements. Sean tapped his fingers against the wall in a rhythm, blinking as he processed the words. 

“It’s where—” The octopus-man suddenly gasped, his eyes widening. “It must be George!” he cried. “The sunflower must be George!”

Macca looked at him, confused. “How could that…”

Ringo laughed, gesticulating wildly with both his hands and tentacles. “It all makes sense! George married the Lady Madras, and had one heir, which is Dhani… and the fight… that must be the duel with Yoko!”

The siren drew back, blinking. “That’s…” his words escaped him. “Ringo, that’s genius!” He began to laugh. “How did you come up with that?” 

The octopus-man shrugged, his skin flushing a cool blue. “Well it just makes sense.” His expression suddenly changed, his eyes casting downwards. “But then, it doesn’t explain the disappearing part…”

Macca gasped. “Does that mean something is going to happen to him?”

Ringo’s eyebrows raised. “Could it?” he asked, frantically.

“Well, it did predict the due—”

“I don’t want to think about it!” the octopus interjected. “My apologies… I just-”

The siren nodded. “I understand.” He sighed here, turning the copper pendant in his hands. “Maybe if we get rid of Ethelein, we can avoid it.”

“Right, right…”

Julian blinked. “What is that?” he asked, pointing to the pendant. 

Macca looked up at the man, and then turned and met Ringo’s eyes. “Oh… well, we actually had something to show you as well. It’s why we came here.”

“Well, then, show me.” 

The pendant shone in the light coming in from the window, reflecting a blinding white. “I saw the  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ in my dream this morning,” Macca began. “I dreamed of the soul reading I underwent with your father.” He paused. “And when I awoke, I found this in my satchel. It’s Ethelein’s pendant— the same one I left at the temple.”

Julian’s face contorted. “Why do you think it reappeared?”

“It has to be some kind of sign… either from him or Saruyo.”

Ringo squinted at the siren. “Do you think she would ever reject an offering?”

Macca shook his head, letting out a little grunt of confusion. “Maybe she can’t help us,” he said. “Maybe there’s nothing she can do, maybe that’s what she’s trying to tell us!”

“She has to help! It’s her job!” 

Sean swung one of his legs over the other, lost in the mermen’s conversation. “Who is this Saruyo fellow, anyway?”

“She’s a sort of saint in their religion,” Julian began.

Macca nodded. “Yes, and the patroness of death.”

“Also the afterlife!” Ringo chimed in.

Sean hummed. “I see.” 

“So,” the siren sighed. “I thought she might take the pendant, and use it to send Ethelein back from whence he came— back to his complete and total death.” He frowned. “But I guess it didn’t work.”

The young man tilted his head. “Have you ever considered,” he proposed, his words spilling out thick and slow. “that maybe it’s  _ you _ that has to send him back?” 

Macca laughed, although it sounded rather empty; almost melancholy. “I’m not sure I could.” 

“Is it very difficult?” 

“Well, I only know so much magic,” the siren blinked. “And it’s all to do with matchmaking, not…” 

He trailed off, unable to find the word he was searching for. Frustrated, he continued, “It doesn’t have anything to do with the banishing of demons.”

“Exorcism.” Julian clarified. “The word you're looking for is exorcism.”

Macca mumbled a quiet thank you.

“I think Sean is right,” Ringo sighed. “I think you might have to banish him.”

The siren’s face contorted. Of everyone in the room, he had expected Ringo to at least be on his side. “I don’t know how!”

The octopus man shifted his weight. “Well, you know more about magic than me. And you have the book! The one by Eschri’s chaplain about  _ sje’inn’a’e _ . That has to help.” He tossed an arm in the air. “Maybe there’s something in there about how to banish him.”

Macca blinked. “Oh, how are  _ you  _ the one with all the good ideas today…” And as Ringo laughed, the siren turned to Sean, a polite smile on his face. “Thank you for the observation. You’ve a very sharp mind.” 

The young man grinned. “Thank you, sir.”

Macca chuckled. “Don’t you ‘sir’ me!”

Everyone smiled, and with a high-pitched sigh, the siren turned to Julian. 

“Well,” he said. “we might want to get going now. We really only came to tell you about the pendant.”

“Of course.” Julian nodded. “I’m sure we’ll see you again soon.”

Ringo stood up, grabbing hold of Macca as he did so. “Yes,” he said. “at Yoko’s house, most likely.” 

The siren turned around. “In the meantime, I’ll be thinking about the prophecy.” 

“As will we.” Sean assured.

Macca’s face turned stony. His eyes met Julian’s. “Whatever you do,” he warned. “don’t let that book out of your sight.”

Julian squinted. 

“These are strange times,” the siren went on. “and we don’t know what Ethelein will do. It might be wise to keep it in your sight.”

The man nodded. “Yes, yes. I see.”

Macca smiled, exposing his fangs, and then looked up at Ringo. 

“Shall we go?” he asked. 

The octopus-man sighed. “We shall.”

As the two left the room and made their way down the stairs, Julian could hear Macca calling out to him. 

“Be good!” he cried. “Be careful!”

“We will!” Sean responded, standing up to leave. 

He moved towards the doorway, trying to adjust the end of his sleeve. The button on the right side was finicky, coming undone whenever it pleased, and letting no mortal coax it back into its rightful place.

Sean sighed and he fiddled with it, and, as he stepped into the hallway, he thought he should learn to sew, if only to attach a new, more ruly button.

“Wait,” Julian suddenly said. Sean turned around, his eyebrows raised. “Before you leave, I need to ask you something.”

“Yes?”

The older man let out a sigh. “I’ve gone through all of these journals, and there’s still one thing I don’t understand.” 

As Sean stepped back into the room, Julian made his way towards the bottom row of books on the floor. He crouched down to pick up the thirty-third. 

“This is the last of one our father’s journals that I was able to find,” he explained. “but if you skip to the end…” He turned back to the last page, to that dull summer day. “It’s not his death. In fact, if my mind does not fail me, it’s more than a year beforehand.”

Sean grew puzzled. “Might I see it?”

Without a word, Julian handed over the book. The younger man studied it, his eyes moving back and forth across the page.

“You’re right,” he said. “this isn’t the last journal.”

“Then where is it?” 

Sean hummed. “I’m not sure. I’ll ask my mother sometime.” 

Wordlessly, he returned the book, and, finally having fixed the button of his shirt sleeve, he began to make his way downstairs. 

As he walked, a single phrase ran through his mind. It was too perfect to be a coincidence, he thought. It had to be some kind of sign, a sort of confirmation of his suspicions. 

_  
He will be caught and laid among strawberries and roses  
  
_

He figured it was some sort of sign for him. Something he was supposed to figure out. Something that would prove his hypothesis. He just had to play the right cards. Stay two steps ahead, if you will. And let no one know what he was doing— not until he was certain he was right.

Now, the good news was, he already knew where the roses were. They were running through the cracks of his wall, and they didn’t seem to be leaving anytime soon. 

But that begged a question— where were the strawberries?

As soon as the thought entered his mind, he felt himself be flung back in time, back to a clearing in the woods. 

He smiled. He knew where to go.


	19. Whist and the Wistful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kyoko, George, Dhani, and Yoko play a game of whist, and Sean finishes a shift at the bakery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 50th anniversary of Let It Be, everyone! Celebrate with a nice, refreshing demon bird.

The dining table was bare, apart from the two candelabras, an ornately decorated teacup, and George’s hands, carefully shuffling the deck of cards back and forth.

Across from him sat his son, and to his right, Kyoko, her hands resting in her lap. Yoko was to Dhani’s left, leaning back in her chair nonchalantly, and occasionally reaching to sip her tea. 

“You’ve ended up with the right partner, girl,” George said, handing the shuffled deck to Kyoko. “after so many years at sea, I’ve become something of a master at Whist.”

Kyoko smiled in response as she dealt the cards. “I take great comfort in that,” she laughed. “I’m just dreadful at it.”

The old man shook his head. “Now, now. I’m sure that’s not the case.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Oh, believe me, it is.” 

A quiet sound rang out as Yoko set her teacup on the table. “Well it’s a very easy game to learn,” she assured. “you will get better.” 

“It’s a very easy game to lose…” Dhani muttered, a malicious grin spread on his face. 

George huffed. “Oh, don’t be so proud!” He pointed his thumb at the boy, and turning to Kyoko, added, “You know, he’s never won a game against me. Not if we aren’t partnered!”

“That isn’t my fault,” the young man protested. “I just happen to be paired with poor players.” 

His father gestured a hand towards him, his eyes focused on Kyoko’s. “See,” he said. “so proud!” 

Kyoko laughed, leaning over the table to count out thirteen cards for her mother. 

Yoko picked them up one at a time and studied them, her face a blank slate. “Oh, let’s just get on with it. Has everyone got their cards?” 

Dhani nodded, turning to his father, who likewise nodded, and turned to Kyoko.

Her eyes met those of her mother. “Not unless I’ve made a mistake dealing them.” 

Yoko took a sip of her tea, and as she pulled the cup away from her mouth, a determined smile crossed her face. “Then let us begin.” 

On the other side of town, past the marketplace and through the forest, the creaky blue door of Hocke’s bakery opened. 

A burst of cold air blew in with a vengeance, a chill Sean hadn’t expected. 

“How could it possibly get colder?” he muttered, shutting the door behind him. It was a good question. Some kind of angry wench, that Mother Nature was.

He sighed, pulling his spectacles close to his eyes, and began to sweep the accumulating snow away from the shop’s entrance.

It was a frustrating task, not to mention a taxing one, especially on such a wintry day. But, as an apprentice, frustrating tasks were his strong suit. And as Mister Hocke had so often reminded him, it was out of the goodness of his heart that he had taken him in, and he could take him out in a second if he misbehaved. 

Sean yawned, his breath trailing like fog in the air, the wind stroking his teeth. He hadn’t slept well the night before, and instead laid awake, the gears in his mind turning, intensely focused on the day’s events. 

He had wanted desperately to leave the house, to get out and get searching for whatever it was the prophecy implied he was to find. But after the morning’s mishap at the church, in which he, the witches’ son, had been pushing through a crowd of well-respected individuals to get into a church, it seemed it would be wiser to stay at home. It surely wouldn’t hurt to wait a day, he figured.

So his plan was set. As soon as he left the bakery, he would not walk along the creek back to his house, as he would normally do, but would instead go down past the market square towards the courthouse, and, when he got there, make his way into the woods. 

From there, he would be left to his own devices, left searching in the thickets for whatever the bird had in store for him. There would be no map or compass to guide him on his way, only his memories of the clearing’s location, along with his gut instincts.

George hummed in amusement as Yoko set down her card, a sly smile on her face, like that of a cat’s. 

She had played the six of hearts, making her the first person to play the trump suit, and putting Kyoko and George in an interesting situation. 

See, Kyoko had been sure they would have won the trick, for, when her next turn came around, she was going to play the ace of diamonds, ensuring her and George’s victory. But, now that the suit had changed to hearts, she was out of luck. 

She squinted at her hand. It consisted mostly of spades and clubs, although she  _ did _ have the four and eight of hearts. 

And if she had them, she reasoned, and Yoko had played the trump suit, then that must have meant she was confident she could do well in it. Perhaps she had the jack, or the queen, maybe even the king or ace. 

But that still left the question of what cards Dhani had in his hand. The six was with her mother, the four and eight were with her, and there were most likely more in the old woman’s hand. 

She glanced at her partner. George picked up on her cue, and tilted his hand ever so slightly to reveal his cards. 

The two of hearts, the Jack, and the seven. She nodded, and with a cautious hand, played her eight. 

George’s turn was over rather quickly, with him smiling and playing his Jack. He knew that either Dhani or Yoko must have had the king, queen, or ace, and so, he knew one of them would be the winner of the trick, but he was happy nonetheless.

What could be better than this, he wondered. What could be better than a good game of Whist with your close companions on a dreary winter’s day?

Dhani laughed as he laid down his Queen of hearts, as did Yoko when she played her ace. The two of them congratulated one another, riding the high of their victory.

After a brief coughing fit, George sighed. “Well done, Captain.” he said, reaching for the piece of paper on which the score was being kept. “That’s your second trick, if I’m not mistaken, meaning you two have won three in total.” He smirked. “Of course, that’s against our seven.”

Yoko shook her head as she sipped her tea. “We will get him, Dhani. We will get him or die trying.” 

The young man was about to refute her claim, admitting defeatedly that his father had always been far too good at the game, and that they couldn’t possibly win in the next three tricks. 

But that was when they heard a knock at the door.

Sean, in the meantime, continued to sweep, clearing a dusty white path to the bakery, and whistling an improvised tune as he did so. 

The Northeast wind was harsh and bitter, but he had put up with it before, and he would put up with it again. After all, he thought, once Hocke closed down the shop and bid him farewell, he’d begin on his search for the holy grail. That is to say, the  _ pièce de résistance _ of his theory about the bird, the smoking gun, if you will. 

He’d soon be on his way to the strawberries and roses, searching for his promised treasure, and, if nothing noteworthy could be found there, then he would still have tried.

Or so he thought. 

See, caught up in his whistling, Sean had not heard the fluttering of wings on the bakery roof. In fact, he didn’t notice the bird until it swooped down in front of his broom, its black eyes bright and glistening against the light of the snow. 

It hopped on its cold feet and let out a chirp. A single, high-pitched, happy-to-see-you chirp, as though, without a proper mouth, the dove was smiling at Sean.

He nearly dropped his broom onto the poor creature, and without a second thought, crouched down to its level.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “I’m working right now, and I can’t imagine Mister Hocke will be very pleased if I stand here dallying around.” 

The dove cooed, its head turned upwards to face the man. Poised on its little feet, it advanced towards him, stopping once it had reached his boots.

“Is there something you need?”

The bird did not respond, instead nestling up against Sean’s leg, almost in the way a cat would do. It cooed quietly, its approximation of a purr.

Sean smiled, surprised by its sudden affection, and reached out his free hand to pet it. “You just wanted to see me?” he asked. “Is that it?”

The creature didn’t budge.

“Well, I’m happy to see you, too.” Sean turned around to glance back at the shop. “But you have to understand, I’m working.” 

The dove let out a falling, high-pitched cry, its avian version of a whine. 

“You just sit here a while, okay?” Sean pat its white head with a single finger. “I’m almost done.”

The bird looked at him with wide eyes.

“Yeah,” the young man laughed. “and when I am, we can head out together. Okay?” 

It nodded, still focused on him, and fluttered up towards the roof of the bakery, perching itself contently on top. In one last acknowledgment, it chirped, the same chirp it had used to greet Sean.

Yoko turned to face the center room, her eyebrows raising at the sound. “Who is it?” she asked.

Two voices greeted her at once, although both gave the same answer, albeit in different orders.

A low, accented voice answered, “Is Ringo and Macca.”

Meanwhile, the second, higher-pitched and with more tone, replied, “It’s Macca and Ringo.”

The old woman stood up, not wanting to turn the two away from her door; especially not in the snow. It’s not that they couldn’t stand the cold. In fact, they seemed to bear it better than most humans. But, from what Yoko remembered, it was not an easy thing for them to do, adjusting their body temperature to match that of their environment. 

As she pulled open the door, the mermen smiled, just to be polite, and then, without so much as a hello, Ringo squeezed through the entrance, his eyes searching. 

“George?” he asked. He tilted his head up towards the top of the stairs. “George?” 

George stood up, and pushing in his chair, moved towards the doorway. “Good afternoon, Ringo.” he said with a grin.

The octopus-man did not return the courtesy. Instead, he frowned, rushing into the dining room. He placed Macca haphazardly in the chair next to Kyoko’s and sat down next to him at the head of the table.

“Come here,” he instructed. “we must speak.”

George blinked. “Is something wrong?”

The mermen exchanged a brief glance. Not very reassuring.

“Just come and sit.” Ringo sighed. “Who all is here?”

Yoko returned to her tea. “I’m afraid it’s just us. I haven’t seen Julian or Sean at all today.”

Ringo shook his head, exhaling slowly. “That’s fine,” he said, rubbing the silver shell on his neck between his index finger and thumb. “that’s perfectly fine.” 

Macca shrugged. “It’d be better if they were here, though.” 

Dhani furrowed his brow. “Has something happened?”

Looking up from his necklace, Ringo began to speak.

“And to you, as well, sir!” Sean nodded as he bid farewell to his master, an arm raised. 

With eager anticipation, he hung up his apron and reached for his cloak. He wrapped it around his person, and just as his fingers touched his hat, the front bell chimed.

He looked up, but to his surprise, he saw no one. No Mister Hocke, no man or woman, no child, no stray hound. His eyes made their way to the floor in front of the doorway.

The dove gave a happy little whistle. 

Sean smiled, bending down to its level. “I was wondering when you’d show up,” he said. “You aren’t too cold, are you?”

With a flutter of its wings, the creature perched itself on the man’s shoulder. And cooing quietly, it rested its side on his neck. 

“Aw,” Sean flinched at the touch of its snow-white and snow-cold feathers brushing against his skin. “you are.” 

He fastened his hat squarely upon his head. “Well, I hate to bring you back into the cold, but I’m afraid we’d better make haste. If we wait much longer, we’ll be lost in the dark.” 

The bird nodded, bracing itself for the winds outside. 

Sean pushed open the door. “You know,” he chimed, relishing in the sound of his boots hitting the snow. “maybe I ought to find you a little bird-cloak.”

The dove tilted its head and blinked.

“So that you aren’t cold,” the man went on. He let out a meek laugh. “Can you imagine asking a tailor to make a cloak for a bird? Oh, he’d think you were mad…”

The creature on his shoulder let out a gargled sound, a strange caw that seemed to signify amusement. In its own unnatural nd demonic way, Sean figured, it was laughing at his joke.

This made him pipe up. His face hardened, his brow furrowing above his eyes. Softly, he asked, “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

The bird did not reply.

Sean squinted. “Do you… really, comprehend it? Do you understand English?”

With a quiet flutter of its wings, the bird let out an evenly toned chirp.

In an ironic turn of events, Sean was unable to understand this. “Is that a yes?” he asked. 

The dove again let out its gargled cackle, and playfully pecked at the young man’s neck. 

Sean drew back at the pinch. “Is it?” 

It gave a high-pitched chirp, and, to further clarify the matter, nodded. 

Turning around a corner, finally catching sight of Saint Alfred’s, Sean sighed. “Then might I ask you just one thing?” 

“We don’t mean to alarm you,” the octopus-man began.

“No, no, not at all!” Macca added.

“But after some thought,”

“After a  _ lot _ of thought,”

Ringo sighed. “Macca and I have decided that it would be in your best interest to tell you—“

“—It took a very long time, you know—”

Ringo’s face flushed blue in annoyance. His tentacles also changed color, much to Dhani’s amusement, as he found the spectacle the source of a kind of childish wonder, from their normal golden hue, to a sort of lemon-lime green.

“Macca,” he huffed. “ _ edjri grahan’a’o. _ ” He rested a finger on his temple. “please be quiet.”

The siren nodded, his eyes downcast on the table. 

“As I was saying,” Ringo continued. “we’ve decided it would be in your best interest to tell you about what happened the other day.”

George tilted his head. “Do go on, then.”

His cecaelian friend sighed. “Well,” he began, turning to Macca, “we went to see Julian. I’ll spare you the reason; it’s nothing of note. But when we got there, he said he wanted to show us something.”

Yoko sipped the last of her tea.

“He found Ethelein’s…” Ringo trailed off, unsure of what the word was.

“Prophecy,” Macca piped up.

“Yes, that.” The octopus-man cleared his throat.

George’s eyes grew wide, his eyebrows moving higher on his forehead, creating deep wrinkles on his face. 

Kyoko gasped. “That’s wonderful news!” she said. “What did it say?”

Ringo put his hands together. “Well, we read it, and, um, I’m afraid it doesn’t make much sense.”

A collective groan went across the table.

“Yes,” George said, wheezing. “I remembered that.”

Ringo’s tentacles deepened in their greenish color. “But— but the good news is, we were able to figure out some of it. Is symbolic, we think.”

George pouted. “So what do you think it’s symbolic of?”

“Who are you, exactly?” Sean’s eyes did not meet the bird’s, focused instead on the street ahead of him, the street that would soon lead into the market stalls. “I don’t believe you are the sea witch Ethelein e’Riddidya. And, if I am not mistaken, then neither do you.” 

Next to his ear, the bird fluttered, lifting itself off of his shoulders and into the air. Sean stopped in his tracks. 

It flew at his eye level, only pausing when it had centered itself in front of the man’s nose. Its wings beat up and down, its head bobbing as it hovered in the air. 

Its beady black eyes shone, pointed directly at the young man’s, its beak shut, not making a sound. 

Sean felt a lump form in his throat. His stomach turned to acid under the bird’s relentless gaze. “Well,” he said, “who are you?”

The dove lifted its head ever so slightly, its eyes pointing convergently at Sean’s. On its face, a pained, worried sort of look.

“Are you the sea witch Ethelein or not?”

It let out a hushed, mangled squawk, as if it was unsure how to use its own beak. And as it did, it tilted its head to the left. 

Sean squinted, confused by the answer. “What does that mean?” he asked. 

The bird repeated itself in both the noise and the gesture, its tone more strained and whiny this time; more unpleasing to the ear. 

Sean frowned. “I don’t understand.” 

Tired of both repeating itself and hovering in the air so long, the dove let out a low, flat chirp and flew behind Sean, facing away from him. It swooped low to the ground, and, as its talons touched the snow, it opened its beak as wide it could to grab hold of the young man’s cloak, moving back as he did so.

This startled Sean, who had assumed the creature had left him, and had begun to walk ahead. But as he did, of course, he felt a tugging sensation on his neck, and he turned around to see the bird, who held a firm and unyielding grip on his cloak.

Once he had turned, the bird let him go, and in one final effort, it cawed its same hushed, mangled squawk, tilting its head to the left.

It finally clicked. “You want me to go that way?” Sean asked. 

With a sort of smile, the bird nodded.

Ringo tapped his hands on the table in a rhythm. “We can’t really be certain, but it mentioned a sunflower.” His eyes met George’s. “It said that the sunflower would bear one heir with the Lady Madras, and that he would fight someone.”

George raised an eyebrow. “Lady Madras?”

The octopus-man sighed. “I believe the sunflower is supposed to be you. I mean,” here he gestured to Dhani, “you’ve one heir, you live in Madras…”

“I’m not really one to fight, Ringo.” 

Ringo gestured to Yoko. “But you were.”

George opened his mouth, as though he was going to speak, but he said nothing. His brow furrowed. 

“Is it a bad thing,” Dhani asked. “if he’s the sunflower?”

Ringo pursed his lips, blinking, so naturally, Dhani assumed the worst. His blood froze over. “What does it mean?” he asked, frantically. “What is to happen to him?”

George held out a hand to him in an attempt to comfort him. “Dhani,” he called. “Dhani, my boy, let him speak.”

The young man’s eyes darted wildly, meeting his father’s with steady caution. 

“Thank you, George.” Ringo reached one of his tentacles up, now using three limbs to tap the table in anxiety. “I- I’m not very sure what it means, honestly.”

“There was another part of that section,” Macca began, quietly. “and that’s what we can’t figure out.” 

All eyes in the room turned to him. 

“What was it?” George asked. “Do you remember?”

The siren sighed. “It said that the sunflower would disappear. And we’re not sure what to make of that…” 

Dhani drew back. “What does that mean?” he asked. “What is it  _ supposed _ to mean?” His breathing picked up. “Is he going to be alright? Is he going to die?”

Macca’s face fell. “We don’t really know—”

“Is that bastard bird after him? Is that it?”

Bastard bird… Oh, the irony. Yoko winced at it. 

The bird back on his shoulder, Sean sighed. “You know, I was actually planning on going the other way.” 

The dove cooed.

“I really need to get over there sometime. Preferably soon.” 

Silence.

The young man shook his head. It was impractical, rattling off his problems to the creature. 

“You never answered my question,” he said stoutly. 

The bird shook its head in reply, its chest puffing out. 

“I’m just saying.”

It grumbled something long and unintelligible, a patchwork of sounds and vowels. 

“Where are you even taking me?”

Sean was met with the same unintelligible grumble. That’s when the realization hit him. If the bird knew where it was taking him, then it must have known its way around the town.

He turned to it. “You used to live here, didn’t you?” he asked in a surprisingly soft voice. “You used to live in New York.” 

The dove blinked, but did not make any sound. 

Checkmate, Sean thought. The pieces of the puzzle were all coming together now. Soon enough, he’d have enough evidence to pose his theory to the rest of the company. 

He dreamed about the idea. He figured he’d start by telling Macca, just to see what he thought. Of course, he likely wouldn’t believe it at first, but once Sean made his case… 

Or perhaps he should start with Julian. He had always been a reasonable fellow, of sound morals and character. But, then again, he and the bird had not gotten off on the right foot, to put it mildly. And after everything that had happened the previous morning… perhaps it wasn’t for the best.

As he toyed with reason, he and the bird suddenly found themselves in front of a stream, a creek, if you will. 

Sean frowned. “Are you trying to take me home?” he asked. “Because I’d really ought to get on my way to—”

The flutter of the dove’s wings cut him off, and it reappeared, hovering in front of him, between his person and the creek.

It tilted, nearly falling in the process, sharply to the left, with a small, inquisitive chirp, and then did the same on the right side. 

“What are you doing?” 

The bird repeated its actions. 

Sean was dumbfounded. “Are you asking me for directions?” 

It bobbed its head left and right. A rather vague answer. 

“Are you trying to take me to my house?” Sean sighed. 

The bird nodded. 

“Then we must go to the left.”

“Listen!” Ringo snapped. “We don’t know if it’s the bird! We don’t know anything, okay? We know just about as much as you do, so you can stop demanding answers.” 

Dhani sighed and, offended by the merman’s suddenly brash tone, stood up. “Very well then. I’ll be in the guest room upstairs.”

He pushed his chair behind him, and as he left, Macca shook his head. “ _ Ade-yorma’so ibe miara. _ ” Wrinkles formed around his eyes, disappointment on his face. “You shouldn’t have yelled at him.”

Ringo grumbled an insincere apology, and so Macca went on, switching back to English to address the whole group. 

“What I think we should do,” he said, “is get everyone together in the house. Especially Julian. He’s the one that’s got the prophecy.”

The table turned attentively to him. 

“We can discuss it then. Go over it piece by piece.” he sighed. “We’ll figure out what we can, and what we can’t, we’ll save for another day.”

“I like it.” Yoko nodded. “That sounds like a good plan.”

“Perhaps it should be over dinner!” Kyoko suggested. “On Saturday night.”

Macca mulled over this. “It’s a good idea, and I thank you for suggesting it, but I’d rather have everyone here as soon as possible. Tomorrow evening perhaps, once Sean has finished working.” He rested his hands on the table then, and, a smile across his face, asked, “Is it settled then?”

George looked at Ringo. Kyoko turned to her mother. They all nodded.

“It is,” George declared.

The bird bounced its body up and down on Sean’s shoulder, anxious as they approached his house.

Sean was not nearly as anxious, and, if anything, was a bit annoyed. “This is still not an answer to my question,” he reminded the creature. “I would sooner have found it if I had gone off by myself.”

The dove hushed him, a sharp, clicking sort of sound. Its eyes widened as they approached the door. 

  
A gust of wind blew, causing Sean to take hold of his hat. Wincing from the cold, he grabbed hold of the doorknob, and with a careful hand, turned it clockwise. 

Inside it was rather dark, although Julian had lit some candles, as well as the fireplace, which was stoked properly below the wall of roses. 

Sean hung up his hat, and without even telling it to do so, the bird moved away, perching on the coat rack as Sean removed his cloak. 

Once it had also been hung up, he met the bird’s eyes, and looked around, a glimmer of hope in his mind that the bird might have brought him a sign in his own home.

And much to his disappointment, nothing had changed. Julian was sitting on the sofa, reading  _ Leviathan _ by the light of the fire, lounging in the warmth. The roses were the same as they had been, and there was no sign to be found.

“Why did you bring me here?” Sean whispered. “I wanted an answer, you blunderbuss. Not  _ this _ .”

The bird shook its head and flew off, hovering in front of the fireplace. Julian, looking up from his book, gasped, his eyes wide. The bird drew back at the sight of him.

“Sean!” Julian cried. “It’s back!”

Sean stood behind the sofa. “I know. I let it in.”

His brother squinted, the light of the fire reflecting in his eyes. “Why on Earth would you do that?” his voice cracked.

The young man did not get a chance to explain himself, for, in front of him, the bird squawked. They both turned to it.

Having caught their attention, it looked right at Sean, and spreading its full wingspan, using its tail feathers to support itself, it hovered. 

On the wall behind it, engulfed in roses and vines, wide, pointed leaves began to sprout. At first appearing only in the far corners, they soon burst in clusters all over the bricks, smothering the pristine white roses. From them extended long, thin branches. And as those came to a stop, they sprouted smaller leaves, reaching down just slightly, until blood red fruit, dotted all over with specks of yellow, began to grow like magic from them, sagging the branches with their weight.

Sean gasped, but before he could say anything, the bird zoomed towards the front door, perching on the knob in an attempt to open it. 

Julian, although in shock by the sudden growth of the new plants, was more than happy to let it out, and so, ran to it, careful not to let it touch him, and flung open the exit. The pigeon, as he saw it, left without a word.

As he moved back to inspect the newly fruitful wall, Sean gasped.

In a frantic, crackling voice, like that of a man made mad by alchemy, he cried, “Strawberries and roses! It’s strawberries and roses— I’ve found them both!”


	20. Masquerading Nobility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Yoko dreams of men and mantuas.

Not once in his life had Julian seen Sean so agitated, so excited, so beside himself. He ran a trembling hand through his hair, his eyes wide and glowing in the light of the fire, his face pale, a small, staggered laugh escaping his lips. 

“I don’t believe it,” he said, awestruck. “I’ve found them both!”

Julian’s face fell. His head tilted just slightly away from Sean, his brow furrowing. His throat felt dry, his tongue too heavy for his mouth, rendering his speech stammered and confused. 

“You aren’t making sense,” he finally stated. 

Sean turned to him, fire lighting his eyes. The corners of his mouth perked up into a deranged smile. “It’s strawberries and roses!” he said plainly. “‘He will be caught and laid amongst the strawberries and roses’, just like the prophecy said!” 

The young man let his hand down from his hair, then, allowing it to fall to his side. “Don’t you understand? It’s right here!”

Julian shifted his weight. “Sean, I don’t know if that’s something to be so happy about.” He blinked rapidly. “Who is  _ he _ anyways?” 

The young man crossed his arms. “I’m not sure, but it’s a start!” 

He looked up, meeting his brother’s eye. And seeing that he was confused, even a bit worried, Sean went on.

“I know it might not make sense now,” he began. “but it will soon, I’m sure.”

Julian had no answer. 

Sean sighed. “I can’t explain the details right now, but, please, trust me, and all will become clear in time.” he pointed a hand in the air, shaking it with a slight weight. “Once I’ve figured everything out, I’m sure.”

The older man let out a slow breath. “What do you mean?”

Sean stammered, unable to speak.

Julian’s face grew hot. “What are you doing that I don’t know about?”

Surprised by his brother’s suddenly confrontational tone, Sean took a step back. His face fell. 

“There is nothing you don’t know about,” he assured. “There is nothing!”

Julian did not back down, his chest rising and falling sharply in agitation. 

“Please! You must be patient. Once the time is right, I shall fully explain myself. In the meantime, I beg you, you mustn’t worry so.” His eyes softened in the warm glow of the room, letting out a silent plea.

Finally, the older man conceded. “So be it, then.” He sighed, and, picking up his book from the sofa, began on his way to the stairs. But as he reached the first step, he turned around. “But you must be careful. There can be no tempting fate in a situation such as this.”

Sean looked up.

“You mustn’t be so trusting.”

And with a shallow breath and light step, Julian traversed the stairs, creaking as his boots touched the wood, leaving Sean by himself amongst the strawberries and roses, his skin stinging from the chastisement. 

He turned to the fireplace wall, stunned to see the flowers trying to push the berries out of what they had come to know as their homeland. But the fruits stood still like mountains, and would not budge in the war for the wall— the War of the Roses. 

But a war, especially one of such small magnitude, is swiftly forgotten in the minds of the people, lost to the pages of every history book but its own land’s. And so, lying in the dark of her bedchamber, Yoko was unaffected by the appearance of the strawberries on her son’s wall. 

She laid calmly in her bed, wrapped in her quilt, her eyes shut in slumber. 

Until they opened.

When they did, she found a young girl looking at her, her hair all done up in ringlets, looking back at her with blue eyes, her cheeks flushed, a small dog’s paw in her hand. 

Yoko’s own eyes blinked, confused at the strangely familiar young woman. It took her a moment to realize that she was not flesh, but instead, made of paint. It was a portrait.

Just as the realization hit her, as she was admiring the quality and detail of the art, she felt a sudden constriction around her waist and chest. 

She let out a gasp. 

To her side, another woman tried her best to conceal her laugh, an attempt made in vain. 

A third lady, standing directly behind her, sighed. “That portrait is of Her Majesty as a young girl,” the woman explained. 

Yoko turned around, surprised. She found herself standing in a small dressing room, standing on an ornate red rug, and surrounded on all sides by shining white panels. 

But it was not the grandiose nature of the room that surprised her. Not this time, anyway. No, rather, it was the familiarity of it all. It was the sensation of repetition,  _ déjà vu _ , if you will. 

It had been so many years since she’d been in this room, she thought. 

The young woman to her side interrupted her train of thought. “Do they have queens where you are from, Madame?” 

Yoko’s voice came out, slow and in awe, just the same as it had been the first time, albeit for different reasons. “Not like this…” 

Behind her, the older woman finished lacing her stay. “Where is it that you are from, exactly?” 

Yoko did not answer, more preoccupied with the knowledge that she was back in the dressing room. If she was here, she figured, and all was the same as it had been, then surely that would mean… 

She turned her head to face the right. She was correct. In front of her, lying on a vanity, was a massive gilded mirror, shining in the candlelight. 

And in it, she saw a woman she did not recognize. In truth, a woman she had  _ never _ recognized. 

This stranger had clean, soft skin the color of wet sand, free of any dirt or grime. She no longer smelled of the sea, with flakes of salt tickling her cheeks.

Her hair had been cleaned, smoothed, and brushed until it lay behind her head in one long, uniform layer. 

She was not the same woman Yoko knew, at least, not entirely. 

Gazing into the woman’s eyes in the mirror, she saw the eyes of a woman that had been dead for years. A woman of nobility and order, a soul bound to an island and made to hide under a white and red facade. She was a tortured soul, a disobedient young woman who had so long ago stormed into the study, a stack of books in her arms, and demanded she be properly taught to read. 

She was a woman of a different world, a relic of time, now. She had never been on a ship, never felt the rocking of the very floor beneath her under the tide, and, more often than not, she had never let her hair down. 

Yoko thought it all so strange, even in her state of  _ déjà vu _ . Perhaps, she thought, the woman was even more of a distant memory this second time. 

With a sigh, she turned back to the room at hand. It was exactly as she had remembered it, down to the shadows on the walls. 

“I have never heard of such a place,” the old woman muttered as she tied the strings of the hip-pad over Yoko’s navel.

She blinked. She had not answered the maid’s question, and yet she still commented on it. Yoko wondered if it may have been sarcasm, but quickly struck down the notion. 

As well as she could remember it, that  _ was _ what the woman had originally said. 

The realization hit her like a piece of steel to flint. She was being dressed for Queen Anne’s ball, exactly as she remembered. And, to her dismay, it was exactly as Macca had described the  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ dreams occurring.

A memory she had, as clear as day, but with a single outlier. An outlier she was not to interact with.

“Would you please lower yourself?” the old maid asked, a mess of white fabric bundled in her arms.

Yoko did as she had been asked, raising her arms above head as one by one, the petticoats swallowed her up. 

Rather counterproductively, she began to search all over for the aforementioned outlier. The dress so far was still the same, she thought, as were the maids; one old and stoic, one young and rather brash. 

Asked to bend down again, the old maid draped the full dress, the mantua, light and grey, and ornately patterned with images of flowers and herbs, fabric spilling over onto the floor in a train, over her person.

Yoko looked in the mirror. It suited her, if she did say so herself, tying her neatly at the waist with a red ribbon, bundling her up like a little package, a gift for someone. 

In between her and her reflection, Agnes reappeared, suddenly with a silver tray full of small pins and a single, long piece of lace. She grabbed Yoko by the arm, and, rather rudely, dragged her to the vanity chair underneath the giant looking glass.

With her free hand, Agnes pulled out the seat in front of the table, instructing the woman to sit. 

Sitting, however, was rather difficult in the dress, and Yoko struggled a great deal before finally settling herself into the chair. 

She watched Agnes work on her hair in the reflection of the mirror, sad, even the second time, to watch it be all made up.

But she understood the sacrifice of her hair’s untamed nature was a kind of necessary evil, just as it had been the first time. She surely couldn’t meet Her Majesty in her more comfortable, more casual, sailing attire. She would be laughed out of the ballroom, a fact John and George warned her of many times.

Her brow furrowed as she thought of them. If she was not mistaken, then they would already be changed, and after her hair had been done, she would find them waiting outside, along with Macca and Ringo in their tub, now complete with wheels, Ethelein, and the second George, a musician, according to the George she knew, that would be performing for the guests. 

“Shall I prepare the Madame’s cosmetics, Agnes?” the older woman asked. 

Agnes hesitated. “Aye,” she began. “although Madame Sallow asks that no face paint be applied. Only rouge, vermillion, lashes, and eyebrows.”

“No face paint?” the old maid scoffed, quietly assembling a second tray.

“Aye. She suggested that we might highlight the Madame’s exotic beauty, and instructed specifically not to smother it in paint.”

Agnes delicately picked up the long piece of lace from the tray, which Yoko had come to discover was a sort of crown, a laurel of soft white fabric that would trail down her neck to her waist. She winced as the maid dug the fontage into her hair, pinning it without mercy to her scalp.

The older woman rolled her eyes, mumbling, “Lord, keep us safe from Her Majesty’s wrath…” 

With this revelation, she approached Yoko, carrying with her a tray of various powders, liquids, and brushes. She set down the tray with a clang onto the table in front of them, and with a delicate hand, reached for a brush dipped in what seemed to be ink. 

The young woman asked that Yoko closed her eyes, and left in the darkness, her thoughts consumed her. Perhaps the outlier would be found in the cosmetics, some kind of blemish on her face, or a slightly darker shade of rouge than she remembered.

“You may now open them.” 

Then, a new question wormed its way into Yoko’s mind. If she was dreaming of a memory, and the memory was of the ball, how long would it last? Would she wake at the night’s end or the morn’s beginning? Or would she wake sooner, before finished dressing, even?

Dipping a separate brush in a liquid dark as wine, Agnes began to paint the woman’s eyebrows. 

If the ball was to go on as long as it did the first time Yoko had lived it, then she would be dreaming for quite a while. It was possible, then, she reasoned, that the outlier would manifest itself later on in the night.

A new, cold brush touched her lips, and she watched in the mirror as Agnes painted them a deep red color. It had been very long, Yoko thought, since she had had red lips. 

Matching her lips, Agnes produced yet another brush, along with a short container of red pigment, or, as she had called it, rouge. 

It dusted Yoko’s cheeks, coating them a shade of cherry-red, a stark contrast to her wet-sand face. 

As Agnes set down the brush, seemingly pleased with her handiwork, the older woman placed her hands on her hips. 

“Well, dear,” she sighed. “our work is done.” 

Agnes giggled. “And what interesting work it was.”

With a deep breath, Yoko began to walk towards the door, careful not to step on the fabric of her own skirt.

The two maids walked with her, their hands held underneath their navels. As the three of them approached the grand set of doors, the same ivory color as the rest of the room, the maids stopped, one on either side.

Agnes was to Yoko’s right, the other woman to her left, both standing profile, facing her. And she stood in the center, facing the doors that would soon open and reveal the company she had not seen in ages, the faces of the young and the dead dressed to a tee, about to enter the ballroom. And then.. 

Yoko paused. Then everything would change. 

Although she did not know it the first time around, the night of Queen Anne’s ball had been one of the most important in her life.

It was the night she introduced herself to the landly world. Her, the captain of the infamous ship of women pirates. The unwilling harborer of mermen. The first, and, at least to her knowledge,  _ only _ person of her country to ever visit Europe. She had acted as a sort of diplomat, a representative of a country that had completely separated itself from the rest of the world. 

But more important than any of that, more memorable even; it was, as far as she was concerned, the night that had truly started her and John’s relationship. Before then, it had been an implied, unspoken, attraction, the likes of which could not be quantified. See, her one condition in letting him and George on the ship was that they would never be allowed to pursue any kind of relationship with the rest of the women. 

And, up until that night, they had had no problems in following this rule. John had ended up falling for Macca, which, although unexpected, Yoko had more than welcomed, and George seemed perfectly content by his lonesome.

But on that night, for the first time, she had allowed herself and John to break this rule. The very one she had implemented. In an environment neither of them belonged in, they had found comfort in one another, and so, persuaded by the warm glow of the ballroom, along with the comically pompous atmosphere of the event, the two of them made an unspoken vow to let themselves feel whatever came to them, for as long as they both should live.

And of course, the breaking of this rule had eventually led to mutiny on the ship, climaxing in the duel with George, but it had also brought the two of them great joy. They married, moved to New York, experienced their share of hardship, raised a family…

To relive such a pivotal moment in her life, the very start of what would go on to be the best years of her life; Yoko wasn’t sure she could do it.

And so, she couldn’t help but laugh as the old maid asked her, “Are you ready, Madame?” 

Yoko sighed as she shook her head. If Ethelein meant for her to dream this dream, then so be it.

Without any further hesitation, she reached for the doors, and with both hands, swung them open. 

And on the other side, waiting for her in the hall, she saw the six men.

Macca and Ringo were in their tub, just as she had expected, waiting excitedly on the far left. They had both styled their hair, drawn back and accessorized in some kind of intricate oceanic manner, and adorning their bodies was a glimmering mess of pearls, copper and silver jewelry, necklaces and rings, piercings, and cuffs wrapped around their wrists and necks. 

Their faces and chests had been decorated with colorful ink, creating patterns of shells and ancient runes. Yoko even noticed Macca’s starfish had been painted.

And behind them, pushing their tub around, was the living Ethelein, dubbed Edward for the night, as the Englishmen insisted he be introduced as the mermen’s handler instead of a sea witch. In their own words, he was not to do so lest he wish to be hanged, a lesson Yoko had come to understand very well. He stood tall and with good posture in his human form, dressed from head to toe in a long, fully curled wig the color of caramel. His neck had disappeared, smothered under a tight lace kerchief, his shoulders cloaked in a massive and intricately-embroidered coat, glowing in the surrounding candlelight like a canary in the summer sun. The cuffs must have been three times the size of his actual arms, wrapping his wrists in an unholy and wasteful amount of lace. And the poor man’s face, as pale as it already was, was caked in what Yoko could only assume was the face paint Agnes had so mercifully spared her from. 

In short, Mister “Edward Rhodes” looked utterly ridiculous, both to himself, and to Yoko. 

And as she examined the other men, she found it amusing that they were all dressed in such a manner, albeit with slight variations. Her bard George’s outfit was orange, reminiscent of dark honey, his wig dark as coal, and Yoko noticed his coat bore more buttons than Ethelein’s. 

The second George, in the meantime, was dressed all in red, and, in stark contrast, a white wig. His face showed no emotion as he looked upon Yoko’s newly made up face and hair. 

But in just the opposite way, in the center of them all, stood John, a wide smile on his face. His spectacles were gone, as if there was no room for them on his white face, his wig a rich brown, and his coat, against his comically oversized cuffs, was the color of a lime.

“Sweet heavens,” he muttered in awe. “they’ve somehow managed to turn you into a noblewoman.”

Hearing his voice, Yoko smiled. “I could say the same to you.” she chuckled. “And also to the Georges and Ethelein.”

“Edward,” the man corrected from behind the wooden tub. 

Yoko’s crewman George crossed his arms, nodding slowly. “Very good, Edward,” he said. “but if we do not wish to make fools of ourselves, then we must proceed immediately to the ballroom.”

John rolled his eyes, prompting George to smack him on the arm. 

“I’ll have none of that.” he sighed. “Oh, the headache this night shall bring upon me…” 

Rubbing his temples, the white-wigged George walked in front of Ethelein and the tub, leading the way for the others. Yoko clutched the fabric of her dress, lifting it enough to be able to walk around, just as the maids had told her to do. She walked close next to John through the grand marble halls, awed by, strangely enough, the varnish on the floor. It was so smooth and shiny, she thought, that she could see her own reflection. 

As she smiled at the sight, pleased even so to be seeing it a second time, John sighed. 

“Pay no mind to George,” he began. “he’s been like this all afternoon.”

Yoko laughed. “I thought he was like this all the time!” 

Unfortunately, John, or, rather, the  _ memory  _ of John could not hear her, and responded instead to what she had originally said. “He has. If you ask me, I think he’s just nervous about meeting Her Majesty.” And then, glancing around to make sure he couldn’t hear him, John added, “She  _ is  _ his kin, after all.”

The woman, simultaneously old and young, laughed. In spite of the man no longer being alive, without his knowledge, his reference to George’s unfortunate and paradoxically high-class status was extremely timely. It was nearly as decadently rich in irony as his son’s criticism of Sean’s family history. 

“Is that so?” She asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm like pulp from an orange. 

“Aye,” John chuckled. “I’ve encouraged him to try and talk to her, you know, strike up a friendly conversation with his cousin…” He shook his head, his wig tossing to and fro, a familiar and nostalgic grin on his face. “Ah, but he thinks I’m a cumberworld. At least when it comes to things like,” Here the man raised his voice in a frivolous, dramatically grandiose voice. “balls, or porcelain, or Her Majesty Queen Anne Stuart.” 

In front of them, George three back a hand. “You have not a shred of humor, John!”

This only made the man, and by extension Yoko, laugh harder. 

He lowered his voice. “Do you see what I mean?” he asked. “In any other situation, he would find that perfectly humorous! But now he’s up in arms.” 

“I do understand that,” Yoko answered slowly. And it was true, even more so the second time, the idea aged like a fine wine. 

With her eventual knowledge of George, she understood that he had chosen to leave a privileged life, a life of high society, royal society, even, by direct blood, in which such things were commonplace, for a scummy life as a bard on a pirate ship. But now, inadvertently, he had been placed, like a priest in a whorehouse, back into the society from which he had distanced himself. A stranger in an all-too-familiar and downright terrifying land.

And what frightened Yoko about this realization, even at the time it had been made, was the bone-chilling similarity to her own life, although George did have the added benefit of familiarity in the noble European culture.

John blinked. “You do?” 

“I do.” And just as she had originally, Yoko lifted her chin, folded her arms in front of her, and did not turn to face the man. “There is very much about me you do not know,” she said, and, feeling a surge of power in her sort of clairvoyance in the dream, added, “at least not yet.” 

“Well then, there is much I would like to.”

The woman couldn’t help but smile at this as the group reached a crowd of people, all dressed as wonderfully strange as the seven of them. 

At the back of the line, the white-wigged George cleared his throat.

“I must be off now,” he declared. “this is as far as I can lead you, I’m afraid.” 

“Then I suppose we shall see you among the musicians?” the other George asked.

“Indeed. And in the meantime…” he glanced over at the ragtag band of pirates, witches, mermen, and ‘exotics’. “I wish you all the best of luck.” 

He walked away, disappearing behind a comically large corner, and within an instant, the remaining George turned to Ethelein, frantically.

“What is your name?” he quizzed.

The sea witch stood straight. “Edward William Rhodes.” 

“And what is your profession?”

“Formerly a chandler; I was kidnapped into servitude for pirates and have since become the unofficial handler of Macca and Ringo.”

The mermen grinned, happy to be acknowledged, before quickly returning to their excited chatter. 

“Very good. How will you greet the Queen?”

“If she should approach me, then I shall bow respectfully, kiss her on the hand, and refer to her only as Her Majesty.” 

George nodded. “John, Yoko. Are you listening to this?” 

“Like a deaf man in the ground.” John deadpanned. 

“These are very serious matters, you know.”

And right as George began to lecture his fellow bard on the emphasis placed on formality and order among the high-class, a loud voice pierced through the room.

“Now announcing His Grace Lord Charles Montagu, Fourth Earl of Manchester, and wife, the Honorable Lady Doddington Greville.” 

A buzzing hush fell over the crowd, pleased to discover that the ball was about to begin. 

George’s eyebrows raised to the sky, his face paling to the color of the clouds. 

“Here we go,” John grinned. 

The line moved forward, and the voice again pierced the tense air. 

“Now announcing The Right Honorable James Stanhope, First Earl Stanhope and Envoy Extraordinary to Spain, and his wife, Madame Lucy Pitt.” 

George moved from in front of the tub to back next to John. “We should have them in front,” he explained.

Macca smiled a sharp, cheeky, smile. “Yeah, we’re special.”

“Oh for the love of God…”

“Now announcing Lord Henry Clinton, Seventh Earl of Lincoln, and his wife, the Honorable Lady Lucy Pelham.” 

“Everyone’s an earl here, aren’t they?” John scoffed.

“Everyone but you.” George retorted. 

By this point, John had all but given up. 

The names, earls and counts, lords and ladies, droned on and on for what felt like hours. All six grew tired rather quickly, the prospect of the ball ever starting becoming more and more of a fantasy by the minute. 

That is, until they reached the front of the line. 

Yoko took a deep breath, her eyes meeting John’s. 

He offered a sort of nonchalant reassurance, believing she was troubled by the prospect of the actual ball.

If only he knew, she thought.

The voice, now even louder, cried, “Now announcing Mister John Lennon, Captain of Her Brittanic Majesty’s Ship the  _ Sgt. Pepper _ , along with his wife, Madame—” Here the man paused, confused by what he was seeing on the paper. “Madame Yoko Aw-no, and his crew, including Sir George Harrison, son of the First Earl of Liverpool Lord Harold Harrison, Mister Edward Rhodes, and their two companions of the sea.”

Endowed now with false information and false pronunciations, the six stepped into the ballroom, directly across from Queen Anne and Prince George. 

As George had instructed them earlier, they tread silently over the cold, shimmering floor, until they were about four feet from the Queen and her husband. At this point, they bowed respectfully, Ethelein finally letting go of the tub. With that, they made their way to the right side of the room, joining the staring crowd of lords and ladies. 

The queen raised her arms, and in a deep, resonating voice, announced, “Let the ball begin.” 

The men and women of the court, all well trained in the art of dance, made their way to the center of the ballroom, and in a twist Yoko was ashamed to have forgotten about, contorted their bodies so strangely, at least to her, that were her surroundings not so serious, she would have laughed.

And, struck by the realization that she could not be heard in the dream, she did. She threw her head back, shielding her mouth with her hand, and laughed until her muscles ached. 

What was even better than watching the court dance, however, was the fact that she, John, the mermen, and Ethelein, all untrained in the art, were left on the side, unsure of what to do. 

It seemed as though they would be there all night, watching the dancers in an awkward and uncomfortable silence, doomed under the curse of their mediocrity. But, very luckily for Yoko in more ways than one, John was the first to break the silence, his voice coming out quiet like the breeze.

“I am not the captain.” he stated bluntly. 

Yoko turned to him, now remembering the conversation as a pillar of their early relationship.

The man’s face flushed. “And you are not my wife!”

“Is that a bad thing?” she laughed, pleased with her former self for having been so witty in her response.

John let out a strangled laugh, having no answer to the question, being so shocked that he could not begin to comprehend the meaning, whether joking or true, in Yoko’s comment. 

It would be the first in a long series of flirtatious notions that night, each one drawing the two closer and closer together, until it would become undeniable that they were attracted to one another. And it would be then, and  _ only _ then, that their unspoken vow would be made. Perhaps then Yoko would wake up. 

Her face fell, suddenly realizing she did not want to. Why, she wondered, when given the choice to relive time spent with her now dead husband, in which all (or nearly all) would be exactly as it had been, would she ever deny it? 

“Are you not offended,” John began, inquisitive. “that they announced you as my wife and not the captain?” 

Yoko tilted her head, deciding to give a vague answer to a vague question. “I’m disappointed they do not think me a proper captain, if that is what you mean.” 

“Right…” 

“But I suppose it is something I must deal with,” she sighed. 

John tapped his foot, the heel of his shoe clicking against the floor like the beat of a drum, against the time of the musicians. “Doesn’t that bother you? That they think I am the captain?”

“Why would it?”

“I’m the bloody bard, Yoko!” John threw his arms in the air. “I’m not the captain; I can’t even sail! I play cittern and complain about sweeping, not…” he was at a loss for words. “Not whatever  _ they  _ think!” 

Yoko’s face fell. It was hard for her to hear John so emotional, even if she had heard it many times before. He was rarely ever like that; he was always careful not to betray his true feelings.

Looking back on it, she thought, he was frustrated. As frustrated as she was to be somewhere he did not belong. Somewhere he couldn’t fit in, as anything he attempted to do to seem normal would reveal his own abnormality. And for that she felt compassion. 

Even if he claimed otherwise, John was not a confident man. He never had been. And overstimulated by his surroundings, he had reached his boiling point at the ball, and ended up spilling his insecurities to Yoko.

“John…” she whispered. “that’s not true.”

His eyes met hers, skittish. “Don’t lie to me. I mean, I’m not really the pinnacle of nobility.”

“I’m not lying!” 

Yoko raised her voice, and then, not wanting to draw attention, lowered it. She took hold of his arm. “Come,” she said, leading him away from the others.

Once they had stepped away a few feet, she continued. “You might not believe me, and that’s fine. That’s your problem. But I mean it when I say that a whiny bard is not all you are.”

“Fat chance.”

Yoko flushed in anger. “Listen to me! Please! You don’t know it now,” her voice cracked, and she was surprised at how emotional she was becoming. “but you are so much more than that. So much more than you know...” She smiled. “You’re going to be my husband someday! That’s something.” 

John blinked, his eyes drifting away from her. “Do you really think that?”

“I do. I lived the whole thing myself.” 

The man nodded, taking a deep breath. “Then I’m glad to be.” 

Tears welling in her eyes, Yoko stepped towards him cautiously, and, after some hesitation, opened her arms to embrace him.

But she could not feel him, and he could not feel her.

He wasn’t real. 

Even with that, the evening went on, the two talking to each other about all manner of things. Their lives, their families, their ideas and dreams. And they spoke to Ethelein and the mermen, too, of course, although there was something different in the conversations held just between the two of them. Attraction, to put a name on it.

Eventually, the crowd made their way to the dining room, a grand hall with what was, quite possibly, the largest table Yoko had ever seen in her life. Stretched over it were all sorts of dishes. Rich soups and bread, salad, poultry, savory roasts, cheeses, vegetables and fruits of every color known to man, and enough pastries to kill a single man. 

Not to mention the great deal of wine to be had. Although spirits like rum and scotch were more commonly enjoyed on the ship, in high society, it seemed, wine was drunk in excess. There was more than enough to go around, enough to make the whole crowd drunk, by Yoko’s estimate. 

A group of servants had been dispatched to pour the wine for the company—each person was entitled to at least a glass—but as a man came to pour some for John, something strange happened. 

See, the glasses were crystal, shining under the chandelier, and as such, they were translucent. One could see the wine inside, its heavy, deep color shown on full display. 

But as soon as the wine reached the crystal of John’s glass, dripping down into the base of the cup, it filled not with the bitter drink, but instead with plump, ruby red strawberries.

Yoko gazed at them, her eyes drawn to them like a moth to a flame, confused by their sudden appearance, and enchanted by their bright color and sweet flesh.

And by the time she understood what she had seen, it was already too late.

She fell into the dark, the cold surrounding her on all sides. Her dress was gone, replaced with a comfortable white blouse and tight black vest. Her hair was no longer tied away from her face in ringlets, but instead tied loosely behind her head with a black ribbon. 

Underneath her, she felt her feet moving, crunching through the snow in a muffled crackling, which was equaled on her left with a second pair of boots.

She looked up to the person next to her, holding her arm in his. His hair was light, his cheeks hollow, heavy shadows on his face and bright reflections in his spectacles in the lantern light around them. John.

In front of her, a cobblestone street, dusted and glowing with snow. And ahead, on the right, her house, the curtains drawn, the rooms dark inside.

The sight was all too familiar to her— John, street, house, shots, screams, blood, wake up. But still, she tried to stop it.

“Go home!” she cried, her voice hushed in the way of a dream, trying to shout but making not a sound. “Get in the house and lock the door! Go home!”

Like before, John could not hear her. 

“Please you have to listen to me, just go home!”

He said nothing, walking with a calm expression on his face towards the house. They were getting closer.

Yoko’s breathing picked up. “Stop!” she screamed. “Stop, please! You have to stop!”

Finally, John spoke, but, like before, he was not answering her words as she said them, but her words as she said them at the time of the dream. And in this situation, it was the casual and ironic suggestion that they go home and bid Sean good night. 

“I suppose it wouldn’t be a bad idea, now, would it?” he asked. 

Yoko grew frantic, trying in vain to run ahead of him. “Stop! Stop, please!” 

She was too late. 

_ One. _

_ Two. _

_ Three. _

_ Four. _

He fell to the ground. “I’m shot!” he cried in pain. “I’m shot!”

Yoko screamed, powerless to do anything else. She tore her hands through her hair, begging herself to wake up, drowning like a rock in a pond of her own wailing.

Her door creaked open, letting the light of a candle flow into the room, creating a long shadow of a deranged old woman in her bed. 

“Mother—”

“Get out!” the shadow hissed. “Go and leave me be!” 

Kyoko, the girl who was supposed to be gone, dead, even, let out a meek sound, and shut the door quietly. 

Yoko curled herself up in her bed, now cold as the snow outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun facts:  
> Everyone announced before the gang were real, and you can find them on Wikipedia!  
> Also, the portrait of Queen Anne as a child is real!


	21. Sonata No. 4 in C Minor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the company assembles in Yoko’s house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before I go on, I’d just like to take a minute to remember Astrid Kirchherr. She was an early Beatles photographer, the fiancée of Stuart Sutcliffe, and, as some of you may know, she passed away last Tuesday after a “short illness”.
> 
> Ms. Kirchher is, in her own words, now reunited with “the love of [her] life”, and will be remembered by Beatles fans the world over as the woman who took so many great pictures of the boys in Hamburg.
> 
> God Bless, and Rest In Strawberry Fields Forever. ❤️

When Julian and Sean came by that evening, they had expected some sense of relief. A kind of satisfaction in having gotten work done, like a weight had been lifted off of their shoulders. You know the feeling, I’m sure. 

They had expected to gather with all the others and analyze Ethelein’s prophecy, and they were well-prepared for it— Julian would bring John’s journal, which would serve as the base of reference for the evening. All was set in place for progress to be made. The seed had been sown, and would soon be cultivated, or, in more literal terms, the plan would soon be set in motion.

But a seed could be sown, and, even in the most fruitful of soil, not grow. Damaged, perhaps, by the rain or lack thereof. Just as likely, a disease could fall upon the plant, spoiling its fruit as it sprouted. 

And, unluckily for everyone involved, this seed had not just fallen victim to the cold or rain, but had died altogether, burying with it any hope of a brighter and more prosperous tomorrow, one in which the sun shone and the skies cleared. 

This was due to a number of things, the details of which are, in the present moment, unimportant, but it began early on Tuesday afternoon, when the brothers Lennon reached Yoko’s door.

Sean knocked, albeit rather redundantly, seeing as how he would most certainly be allowed in, and had just reached for the handle, when the door opened for him. Or, more accurately, Dhani opened the door for him.

He looked worn, his face flushed and his eyes untrusting. 

“Good even—” Julian began.

The young Sir Harrison shook his head. “The Madame of the house is not taking visitors at the moment.”

Sean frowned. “She isn’t?”

“Nay. Not a soul.”

Inside the house, a loud commotion rose. Sean could hear Macca hissing and shouting, his voice portraying agitation, coupled unpleasantly against one of Sir Harrison’s coughing fits. 

“Has something happened?” the young man asked, alarmed.

Dhani turned to the ground. “I’m not sure… she’s been like this all day.” 

Julian furrowed his brow. “Like what, exactly?”

“In a word— irritable. She has stayed in her bedchamber the whole day, and has adamantly refused to speak to anyone.”

A clamor arose upstairs, prompting George to leave.

“Unless she’s fighting with someone, anyway.” 

Sean grew impatient. “What has happened, then? What has made her so upset?” 

“I know not!” Dhani threw his hands up, suddenly annoyed. He turned to face the top of the stairs. “But it didn’t help that we let  _ Macca and Ringo  _ inside, did it?”

On the staircase, George shook his head. Hacking his lungs out into a handkerchief spattered with wet red drops, he made his way down to the foyer.

“Oh for the love, boy, don’t be so petty.” His eyes met Julian’s. “Please, you two, come in.”

“She will not be happy to receive them.” Dhani warned.

“Don’t be silly,” George sighed. “they are her sons.” 

“Well, you said she’d be happy with the mermen’s arrival, and look how  _ that _ went!”

Sir Harrison bit his tongue, choosing to ignore his son’s comment. “Come in, gentlemen,” he instructed. “for now, you may sit in the parlor.” 

“Right.” Sean blinked.

George and Dhani stepped aside, creating enough room for the two to enter, and then left in a huff, George insisting that they must speak. 

That left the brothers alone on the parlor sofa. 

Julian stared out the window, trying to distance himself from the situation. Outside, the sun had come out, making way for a gorgeous blue sky, as deep in color as a sapphire, which contrasted sharply with the snow on the ground. 

Sean crossed his arms, his face portraying anxiety. He had seen his mother in this sort of state a handful of times before, unwilling to leave her bed or speak to anyone. And it wasn’t exactly a pleasant state for her to be in. 

Something, he figured, was horribly wrong. He had his suspicions, of course, and they were very likely, but still, he wondered what set her off.

The two were interrupted in their introspection by the sticky, unmistakable sound of tentacles slapping against a set of wooden stairs. 

Julian was the first to peer out the parlor doorway, and in it he saw Ringo, his cheeks a flaming blue, with one hand on his temple.

“Good evening,” Julian called. “is all well upstairs?” 

Upon seeing the man, Ringo rushed into the room. He inhaled sharply. “No, actually, it isn’t.”

“My apologies.” Julian withdrew, alarmed by the confrontational nature of the response.

The octopus-man shook his head. “Sean, you had better get up there.” 

Sean looked up, his eyebrows raised. “Has something happened?”

“If there’s anyone she’ll listen to, it’s you.” 

The young man blinked. “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m unsure what you mean.” 

Ringo sighed. “It may be wise for you to go and speak to her.” 

“Is she alright?” Sean asked, feeling a sudden flash of fear. “Is she ill?”

“No, no!” The octopus-man flushed. “No, she has not taken ill.” He pursed his lips. “Although she certainly is not well.” 

“What do you mean, exactly?” 

“She’s been in a foul mood,” Ringo explained. “all day. She wouldn’t speak to George or Dhani—not even to Kyoko. At least, not until now.”

“Oh, will you please stop being so vague?” Sean snapped.

The octopus-man raised his eyebrows, forming deep lines on his forehead.“Fine! Fine! I am! Look, I’m doing it!”

“Time is finite, you know.” Sean grumbled.

“Look, I apologize, just let me speak!” Again, Ringo inhaled sharply. “She did not want Macca and I in the house, and so she is very upset with George for letting us inside.” He puckered his lips. “She’s upset with everyone, really.”

Upstairs, the three of them could hear strangled fragments of an argument. Julian winced, feeling small, as though he could melt into the cushion of the sofa. 

Ringo sighed. “Perhaps you could calm her down. If she’ll speak to anyone, it’ll be you.”

Sean nodded, not meeting the man’s eye. “You’re right about that, I’m sure.”

“So shall you go, then?”

The young man took a deep breath. “I shall.” And, standing up, he added. “I’ll ask her about the journal, as well.”

Julian looked up. “I beg your pardon?”

“The missing journal; I’ll try and ask her if she’s seen it.” 

“Oh,” the older man blinked. “right. Yes, um, thank you.”

“Anytime.” 

And with that, Sean left the parlor, traveling through the foyer and up the stairs, squeezing past Kyoko on the way, then looked down the hallway until he spotted the commotion.

It really didn’t take long. You know, an emotionally disturbed siren on the floor is usually a good sign something is wrong.

He heard his mother’s voice. “Just leave, please! How is it that difficult?” 

Macca laughed an annoyed laugh. “Well, for starters, I don’t have legs!” 

“Then tell Ringo or George to get you! Call the King for all I care!” 

“You told Ringo to leave!” the siren explained, annoyed. “Now I’m stuck here!”

Sean cleared his throat. In a quiet voice, he began, “Excuse me? I don’t mean to alarm you, I just—”

Neither his mother nor the siren heard him. 

“Then just shut the door!”

“Yoko, I’m not going to do that.” Macca shook his head. “Listen, Julian and Sean are going to be here soon. If you would just come out and—”

“We’re already here, actually.” Sean raised his voice. Macca turned to him, his eyes wide. “Do you think, perhaps, I could…” he gestured towards the open door of the room. 

The siren nodded. “Yes, certainly! Um,” he turned his head back towards the room. “Yoko, I’m going to let Sean in. Is that alright?”

The old woman did not respond. She had no answer.

“Why don’t you go inside,” Macca urged him. 

Sean frowned. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I am.” The siren sighed. “Just go. I’ll be right out here. Just make sure to let me know how it goes.” 

“I shall.”

Macca paused. “And one more thing?”

“Go on…”

His face grew serious, almost melancholy. “Good luck.”

The young man nodded, and then, crossing the final frontier, stepped into the room, shutting the door behind him.

The walls of the room, along with the bed and blankets, were white, the wooden floor mahogany, the rug green. And his mother, contrasting all else, sat on the mattress in black. She did not look at him.

“Mother,” he spoke.

Silence. 

“Has something happened?”

Yoko took a deep breath. “Yes.”

“May I—”

“You may not,” she answered quickly. Sean drew back. “What I mean is—you needn’t worry about it.”

Her son furrowed his brow.

“I am unwilling to speak of it. And moreover, you are unwilling to hear of it.”

“That is not true!”

“Perhaps not.” Yoko bit her lip and shrugged. “But either way, I’ll not speak of it.” 

Sean tilted his head, his face pulled back in a grimace. “Do you wish to?”

“There’s no sense in it,” his mother laughed. “all that could be said has been said. All that could be done has been done. And now there is nothing.”

The young man nodded, understanding fully what had made his mother so distraught without her ever having to say it. In his mind, he saw an empty box, and next to it, a full basket. 

He took a deep breath, and, releasing it, told his mother, “One day it will be spring.” 

Yoko shut her eyes tight. “If that is so,” she began, a pained look on her face. “then in two days it will be winter.” 

“And when the winter comes, I shall be here.”

The old woman laughed in spite of herself. “Clever boy,” she muttered. 

Sean smiled. “I should hope so.”

Yoko traced her hand across the sheets of her bed, now warm in the sunlight. “Do come,” she said hesitantly. “on Thursday.”

“You know I shall.” 

“I know.” 

A fragile, even silence draped the white room like a cheesecloth. It was a reverent, delicate sort of thing, a holy moment of observation for the coming winter. A remembrance of the empty box and full basket. A reminder of the far-off spring. 

Yoko waited until the moment felt right to break it, her voice low and quiet as she whispered, “You speak with your father’s poise.” 

Sean pursed his lips.

“He would be very proud,” she continued with a sigh, “to see you as you are now.”

The young man muttered a meek expression of thanks, his eyes not fixed to anything in particular. 

Yoko laughed, her voice hollow and forlorn. “I see much of him in you.” She turned to the window, gazing down onto the street below. “Little things, you know. Everyday things. It’s funny, I think, to see how similar you are, even if…” she stumbled over her words. “even if he hasn’t been around.” 

Sean said nothing. 

Here his mother’s face grew grim. “No matter what anyone else tells you,” she said sternly. “be proud to be his son. He was a righteous man.” 

Sean nodded uneasily, pushing his glasses back towards his eyes. He thought back to the Sunday morning he had spent with Julian in the church, his brother’s words etched into his mind. 

_ He was so good to you and your mother. _

A heavy feeling crashed over Sean like a wave. A new revelation of sorts, regarding the conflicting statements of his mother and Julian. 

His mother, he knew, thought of his father as a virtuous and honorable man, while Julian, it seemed, disagreed. 

And, of course, Sean did not know everything about the man. In fact, he didn’t even know  _ much _ about him. 

So, with what limited knowledge he possessed, he deduced that either his mother was blissfully ignorant of John’s wrongdoings, or Julian had, in some way, lied to him. 

Now what Sean hated, loathed, resented,  _ depsiped _ , even, was that he would never know which it was. His father was a sore subject to everyone but him, it seemed, and because of that, he was better not to be spoken of. 

And one cannot ask pressing questions about someone better left unspoken. It’s just plain rude.

As the young man thought of Julian and that previous Sunday, his mind called to its forefront a mystery, a question that had to be asked, or at least, could try to be asked.

“Mother,” Sean called, ending the quiet period of introspection that had begun. 

Yoko turned to face him. 

“If I may ask you, on Julian’s behalf, where is Father’s last journal?” The young man crossed his arms. “He said it was missing; it was the only one he didn’t have.” 

The old woman pursed her lips, unable to meet her son’s gaze. The air stilled, the light from the window fading in favor of shade. “I’m not sure,” she eventually sighed. “he lost it a long time ago.” 

At this Sean grew puzzled. “He lost it?” 

“Aye.” 

“That doesn’t make sense.” he noted. “He had every other one.”

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you.” Yoko said evenly. “He awoke the morning he died, and he couldn’t find his journal.” She looked around the room. “I bet you’d find it, though, if you looked around enough. I think he just left it lying somewhere.”

“Right,” Sean sighed. “thank you. I’ll be sure to let him kn—”

He was cut off by the sound of a woman shrieking downstairs. Both of them turned to the door, their eyes wide. 

“Kyoko!” Yoko called, running out the door.

Sean followed suit, haphazardly grabbing a startled Macca on his way. 

The three sprinted down the stairs, Sean nearly tripping on the carpet as he went. They moved into the parlor, the source of the noise, with haste in their feet and anticipation in the whites of their eyes. 

Inside, they were met with a clamor of voices. 

“Get Macca!” Ringo cried, his lower half colored to match the fabric of the sofa. “Someone go get Macca!”

Julian stood up in front of the octopus-man, alarmed. “How did it get in?”

“I don’t care how it got in,” Dhani screeched. “get it out!”

“Everyone calm down!” George said, standing by the harpsichord with his arms in the air. 

Kyoko just stood in the corner, wailing.

Yoko’s chest rose rapidly with her breath. “What’s going on?” she asked, panicked. 

The others turned to look at her, their faces unnerving. 

With a gulp, George stepped aside, revealing the window by the harpsichord, in which the empty rosebox stood.

Yoko gasped as she saw it.

There, next to the harpsichord, at the far end of the room, above in the rosebox, sat a frightened raven, with feathers and eyes as black and ominous as death. 

Its head darted back and forth wildly across the company, its focus shifting depending on who was speaking. 

“I opened the window to let out smoke,” George explained, a pipe in hand, “and it just flew inside!” 

Macca gripped Sean’s arm with the fury of the sun. “Put me down.” he demanded, his voice as cold as stone. “Lay me on the sofa.”

The young man did so, and then slowly began to advance towards the creature. 

As he took a single step forward, it fluttered its wings, moving from the rosebox to the edge of the harpsichord.

Everyone in the room stepped back, dismayed by the sudden movement. 

Among the murmurs and hyperventilation, Macca reached into his satchel, digging out strings of inky black pearls with the conviction of a judge condemning a witch to die. He held them out in front of him, draped over his arms as he sat awkwardly on the sofa. 

“Ethelein Nebiyatec e’Riddidiya,” he shouted. “I order you, through the power of the Disciple Saruyo to vacate this Sea of Time and retreat to the afterworld, lest you wish upon yourself the judgement of the gods!”

The room stilled, everyone but the siren too scared to speak. All eyes were fixed on the bird. 

It blinked.

“Be gone!” Macca cried. “You do not belong to this world!” 

Again getting no reaction from the creature, the siren grew frustrated and tossed a string of pearls in its direction. They broke from the string on contact with the floor, spilling out into every corner of the room. 

And as they drew nearer to him, the bird let out a loud cry, a whine of pain. It backed away on the harpsichord, its head tucked into its little body.

At the sight, Sean became enraged. 

“Get those away from him!” he screamed, his face growing red. “They’re hurting him!”

Macca did not listen, and instead stayed focused on the blackbird in front of him. “Leave this world and never come back. It is not yours for the taking!” 

The bird whimpered, throwing its head back in what looked to Sean to be sheer agony, pain beyond compare. He ran into the center of the room, using his foot to sweep away as many of the pearls as he could 

“Let him be!” he cried, nearly falling to the floor on the pearls. “Don’t hurt him!”

In all the noise and chaos, Julian grew dizzy. His head ached something fierce, his breath shaky and uneven. He could only pick out certain pieces of dialogue, his mind more preoccupied with the fact that they were shouting as opposed to what they were really saying. 

He dug his hands through his scalp, unable to look at the scene and yet unable to look away. 

“What are you doing?” Macca hissed at Sean. 

The young man turned to him in a huff. “What are  _ you  _ doing?” he asked. “Hurting him like that?”

“ _ I _ ,” Macca fumed, “am trying to save your life!”

“You certainly aren’t saving  _ his _ !” Sean snapped. “Look at the poor thing! Look at how you’ve pained him!” 

“Him?!” Macca drew back. “That’s not a  _ him,  _ Sean, that’s a black-hearted… a black-hearted…” he stuttered, enraged. “ _ creature _ . And a demonic one, at that!” 

“He is not!” 

By this point, Sean had lost all semblance of reality, his eyes wild like those of a tiger, his breathing disordered and spiteful. His cheeks flamed in anger, his shoulders shaking with ire.

“You are a hypocrite!” he spat, his voice cracking, a finger pointed at Macca with accusation. “You all are hypocrites, spending your days consumed in melancholy for the memory of—”

Finally, after being yelled at and torn to pieces, Julian broke. Among the screeching of Macca, his brother, and the bird, he no longer felt as though he was really himself. He was no longer in the present moment.

“Stop!” he pleaded, his voice wavering like that of a child’s. “Please, I beg you, stop!”

Kyoko gripped harder onto the fabric of her skirt until her knuckles were white. She stepped back, afraid.

Sean, so full of anger, did not seem to care for his brother’s request. “All day and all night you act as fools, spending all your time wallowing in your own sorrows that when an opportunity such as this arises—”

A high-pitched voice rang out over his, confident and powerful, with the conviction of a true captain. “That’s enough!” Yoko declared. “I will not be called a hypocrite and a fool in my own home, by my own son, even. Now for the love of God, hush up and get away from that thing!” 

Sean met her eyes, his chest rising and falling disorderly.

His mother glared at him, the fury in her eyes only comparable to, well, that of a mother scolding her child.

Made guilty, as one is, by her look, Sean conceded. Shaking his head, he kicked away the last of the pearls, watching as they rolled away from him on the floor, traveling across the wood and under the sofa, under Macca where they belonged, and stepped away from the harpsichord, standing back next to Dhani. 

Dhani not so discreetly moved to the side.

Sean sighed, and Kyoko’s heart twinged at the sight.

The air was charged, made static by the appearance of the bird and the resulting conflict it caused.

Speaking of the bird, it had remained on the harpsichord, its head still tucked into its body, as though it was ashamed of itself, trying to hide its face from the world. 

Its chest bobbed up and down, breathing shakily, afraid of the pearls. Although it no longer whined, seemingly in less pain than it had been. 

Once the room had grown silent, it looked up. 

Its beady eyes traveled across the parlor, individually meeting Kyoko’s, then Julian’s, then Macca’s, Ringo’s, George’s, Dhani’s, Sean’s, and lastly, Yoko’s. 

It blinked, stepping carefully down from the ledge of the harpsichord and onto the keys. 

A sharp, dissonant chord rang out, consisting of accidentals and sevenths, a disarray of notes strung together in cacophony.

Even the bird seemed repulsed by the sound, drawing its head back in disgust. It wandered carefully up the keyboard in a scale in the key of C. 

Macca’s face fell. “What is it doing?” he asked. 

“It’s walking around.” Sean answered, a hint of disdain still in his voice. 

“It shouldn’t be.” the siren said. “We need to get it out of here.”

The young man held out his hand. “Give him time. He won’t hurt us.”

“You don't know that.” Dhani snapped. “Mister Lennon, I hate to disappoint you, but he is, quite literally, a demon.” 

“That would be Mister  _ Ono  _ Lennon, sir.”

Dhani shook his head, fed up with the man, who he was finding to be insufferable.

Macca hushed them both, holding his arm out to them. His eyes were glued to the harpsichord, on which the bird was now poking keys with its foot. 

“Do you think it knows how to play?” Ringo asked, curious.

“ _ Angada’o _ ,” Macca whispered. “quiet.”

The bird looked up at the two of them, its eyes sparkling. It let out a small, slow chirp. 

The siren’s face fell.

This the blackbird picked up on, its eyes transfixed on the merman. It opened its beak slightly, and then, thinking better of it, it fluttered its wings, lifting itself up into the air, and slowly moving towards him.

It dawdled in the air, moving inch by inch to the sofa, and then abruptly stopping. It drew back with its wings, letting out another quiet whine. 

“It’s the pearls.” Sean muttered. “They’re hurting him again.” 

The bird flew back to the harpsichord, its feet landing squarely on D and C, in one of the upper octaves of the instrument. It was a pitiful sound.

George coughed into his handkerchief before asking, “Aren’t we going to get it out?” 

Macca snapped back into reality. “Yes,” he answered. “Yes, we must.” 

“Must we?” Sean chimed in. “He is a nice bird.”

Julian blinked. “Is he really? He tried to throw me in the river.” 

“Yes, he’s very n…” the young man trailed off, his eyes falling to the ground. “I’m not sure.” 

“Well if you’re so convinced it’s benevolent,” Kyoko said, her voice cracking, frightened. “then why don’t you just ask it to leave?” 

“Perhaps I shall,” Sean responded. He cleared his throat, taking a quick breath before beginning, “Sir, I would like to ask on behalf of these people here that you leave for now. Perhaps carry out whatever business you may have, and then leave.”

“No,” Macca added. “just leave.”

The bird did not respond, its eyes fixed above them. 

“What is that going to accomplish?” Sean asked. “Is your plan really just to ignore him every time he comes here?” 

“As a matter of fact, it’s not.” The siren smoothed his veil. “My plan is to try and send him back to the afterworld; hence the pearls.” 

“So you’re going to kill him?”

“Hush up!” Yoko interjected. 

The two of them turned to her.

“Look,” she said.

They paused. 

“Look at the bird.” 

Sean and Macca directed their gaze to the creature, juxtaposed as either black as the night sky, or white as a cloud. 

Its head was raised ever so slightly to the sky, its eyes transfixed above them, gleaming with a sort of vague terror. 

“What does it see?” Kyoko asked cautiously.

“I don’t know…” 

It stumbled back on the keyboard, creating a harmonic and yet bone-chilling combination of E flat and G. 

Sean lowered his voice. “What do you see, sir?” 

It turned to his mother with fear in its eyes, droning a whiny sound. 

“What?” Yoko panicked. “What is it?” 

The bird shut its eyes and nodded, more serious than anyone had ever seen it, and, taking a deep breath, flew into the air. 

It raised itself high towards the ceiling, and fighting against the effects of the pearls, groaning in pain as it flew, it moved across the room to the bookshelf.

When it had reached the ledge, it stopped, lowering itself in pain as though it was trying to fight against gravity itself. 

It bent down with an aching body, poking around with its beak until it found what it was looking for. 

“What has it got?” Macca asked, his brow furrowing. 

Yoko hushed him, the whites of her eyes marbled with thin red lines.

It was then that the bird turned around, its body low on the shelf, tucked into itself in pain. 

It raised its head, showing its beak. 

The room went dead silent. 

For in its clutches, it held something terrible. Something horrific and grotesque, a grim reminder of events better left forgotten. A symbol of the coming winter, one unknown to everyone in the room. 

Everyone but Yoko. 

In the grip of its beak, the bird held a pair of spectacles. The lenses were small and round, the temples neatly folded over each other, as though ready for retrieval and use. 

The left lense was spattered, soaked, even, in blood, caked on after the nearly twenty years it had been left sitting on the frame. 

Yoko gasped, her face flushing. 

Julian suddenly felt ill. His cheeks paled, his skin breaking out in a cold sweat. He felt the need to hold onto something, as though without it he would fall.

For that, he chose Macca’s arm.

Making sure the company had gotten a good look at the spectacles, the bird set them down on the shelf, and flung itself back to the empty rosebox. 

Kyoko ran after it, tripping on her own skirt. 

“Get out!” she hissed. “Get out!”

The bird dove through the open window into the cold air outside.

The woman, meanwhile, threw her hand out, trying to grab at the bird. Immediately, as a blast of cold air entered the parlor, the creature flew away, Kyoko’s hand still extended in the air, ready to scratch the thing. 

“Do not ever come back!” she screeched as it disappeared over the horizon. “Leave and never come back!”

At the opposite end of the room, Yoko walked towards the bookshelf. Her step was slow and dazed, unsure of herself. 

She stopped in front of it, and with a shaking hand, reached towards the top and grabbed the spectacles.

Julian took a step back. 

“You kept them,” he hissed. 

His stepmother drew back, clutching the eyewear close to her chest. 

“You  _ kept _ them!” 

“That is none of your concern!” she cried, her whole face hot.

“You kept his spectacles.” 

Yoko blinked. “I do not deny that.” 

Julian was at a loss for words. “In what world—” he stuttered. 

“If it bothers you, then you are free to leave.” 

The man glared at her, repulsed by what he saw in front of him. “Really?” he laughed. “Then perhaps I should leave now for the docks, and with luck, catch a ship back to England.” he shook his head, indignant. “God knows a shipwreck would be a better sight than  _ this  _ circus act.” 

Yoko turned away from him, the spectacles still held close to her heart. “If you do leave,” she sighed. “then it was nice to see you here.” 

Shaking his head, ashamed by the scene, he left the room, nearly knocking over the coat rack with the force he grabbed his cloak.

His hands shaking, he pulled his gloves over his exposed skin. 

It took a minute for Sean to process what was happening. His face fell. 

“Julian!” he cried. “Where are you going?”

The door opened. 

“I’m just going home,” the older man said. “but heed my warning: If this sort of thing keeps up, I will leave in the night for Liverpool, without so much as telling any of you.”

“No!” Sean protested. “You can’t do that! The prophecy, the roses, the strawberries!” He ran into the foyer. “We are  _ so _ close to figuring it out! Would you really leave now? When the true meaning of the sea witch’s words is nearly unlocked?”

“I would leave,” Julian sighed bitterly. “when I find myself thoroughly repulsed by this company.” He turned around, the doorknob still in his hand. “You all are mad. Obsessed with demons and prophecies… things any man of God would stay far away from. If you are not careful, I fear, then you may find yourselves tearing each other apart for—” his voice cracked. He shook his head at the floor. “for a treasure you can never possess. An intangible, indecipherable treasure that does not exist.”

He turned his head up to meet Sean’s eye. “If that is your goal, somehow pleasing to you in your own mind, then I’ll have no part in it.” The older man flushed. “I’ll not see you all driven to madness.” 

Sean’s stomach sank. 

Julian shut his eyes. “Farewell, Sean. I’ll see you later.” he turned to the parlor. “Kyoko, Macca, Ringo, the Sirs Harrison… you as well.”

He took a step outside, then paused. 

“And Sean,” he said, not turning to see the young man. “you mustn’t be so trusting.” 

Before Sean could respond, the door shut in his face. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you ask, the spring/summer thing will be explained in the next chapter. Until then, stay tuned!


	22. A Candle in the Spring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sean walks to his mother’s house.

There comes a point in every man’s life where he is placed under such tremendous pressure and finds himself in such extreme circumstances, their root problems too large and unkempt to even begin untangling, that he is unsure how he himself feels.

Too many thoughts swim in his mind, his heart aching for an answer his brain does not wish to give. He loses sleep, made weary by the stress he finds himself in, and yet his legs are forced to carry on, if, for no other reason, to keep him from insanity. 

Such was the situation Sean Ono Lennon found himself in the morning of the 8th of December, in the year 1740–twenty years to the day since his father’s death.

And how strange it was, he thought. It seemed that more had happened to him in the past week and a half than had happened in those twenty years. 

The young man sighed. If he had been looking for adventure, for something dramatic to keep him occupied in his less-than-glamorous, mundane existence, then he had certainly found it in the appearance of his mother’s crew and the dove. 

But did he want it?

As Julian had put it, the company would tear each other apart if they weren’t careful. They could be driven mad by the sea witch’s prophecy, searching for an answer they may never find. Their relationships to one another could be changed forever—and not for the better. 

In fact, they already may have been. Julian was furious with Yoko for having kept John’s bloodstained spectacles, a point he had been sure to make clear to Sean the evening before.

And although his mother and brother had always had a strained relationship, the young man couldn’t imagine it would be made any better by Tuesday’s… incident. 

As he trudged through the snow, Sean tried to rationalize his thoughts on the matter, cherry-picking what he did and did not want to acknowledge.

He figured Julian’s warning was a good place to start.

The last thing Sean wanted was to destroy his relationships with the company. He couldn’t bear to lose his mother or Julian, and he wouldn’t exactly want to lose Kyoko, either. She was still, more or less, his sister, even if the two had only met a few years ago. 

Macca could kill him and eat him for breakfast if he wronged him, the two Sir Harrisons had a great deal of influence, and so could accuse him of witchcraft, an accusation the townspeople would most certainly believe, and Ringo—well, he wasn’t exactly a threat, per say, but Sean would rather be liked by him then hated. 

After all, not many people seemed to like him, at least in New York. He was the witches’ son— a boy born in sin and doomed to Hell from the start, someone who spoke in mysterious tongues and made friends with doves, if only because no one else wanted to be his friend. 

And, as the date reminded him, looming over him like a black cloud about to burst with rain and thunder, he was a witch that could not be allowed to live. 

Water seeped into the heel of his boot. 

It was twenty years ago to the day that the townspeople’s—or at least, one specific individual’s— paranoia and distrust of his family had boiled over, culminating in what was by far the worst thing that had happened to Sean. That is to say, his father’s murder. 

That night had changed everyone’s life. Everyone in the company, at least. But it had been especially hard for his mother, who, along with being freshly widowed, had a young son to look after. 

For her, the murder wasn’t just the loss of her husband. It was a gruesome reminder that the same thing could happen to her or Sean. The people of the town wanted the two of them dead (they had made that more than clear), and by God, if they were up for it, they wouldn’t hesitate to take the law into their own hands and kill them. 

It hurt Sean to think how much that ideology had changed his mother, and, subconsciously, himself. 

He thought back to the days following his father’s death, a thing he tried, with varying degrees of success, to do only one day of the year. 

In his memories, he stood in a pitch-black house, with not a single candle lit, and not a single set of curtains open to let in the sunlight.

Upstairs, his mother laid in what had become her bed alone, not unlike she had the other day, telling Sean to leave when he came, and only occasionally leaving for food and other necessities. 

That left the boy sitting by himself on the stairs, and, with nothing better to do, he let his mind wander.

About what, he wasn’t sure. 

But he was sure of one thing. In that time on the stairs, he had never dared turn to his right, not wanting to face the parlor. In his frightened little mind, his father’s corpse still laid inside, cold and dead and covered in blood.

You see, on the night he had died, his blood had seeped into the rug underneath, staining it so deep a red that it had to be replaced. 

In theory, it could have just been removed, and the parlor floor could just stay bare. But, as Sean and his mother had eventually discovered, after neglecting the issue for so long, the wood underneath was also stained, as though someone had taken a sponge full of paint and scrubbed the floor with it. 

So, to make a long story short, the rug was replaced.

John, on the other hand, was not, and so, as a horrible way of proving he never would be, his blood still stained the hardwood floor of the parlor. And to the present day, if the rug was swept aside far enough, it could be seen, a fact that had always left Sean a bit unnerved. 

As he had come to realize long ago, his mother seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with his father’s murder. And the recent discovery of his bloodstained spectacles had only further reinforced this idea. 

Sean’s head ached at the thought, and he felt himself overcome by the aforementioned swelling pressure that came along with so much stress.

He decided to think of something more positive. 

As he recalled, he had been sitting on those steps one afternoon, keeping to himself and his thoughts, when an idea struck him.

He was going to be brave, he thought. 

He was going to try (for the nth time) to speak to his mother. 

And he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. 

Unless she yelled at him. If she yelled at him, he thought, then he’d be forced to surrender, and most likely cry on the stairs.

He stumbled up them in the dark, pleased to find a sliver of sunlight peeking through the curtains at the top. It was a good omen to him, a lucky charm of sorts. 

Standing in the hallway, enveloped in shadows, he froze, his eyes fixed on his mother’s door.

As he had expected, it was shut. And it wouldn’t easily be opened. 

He took a deep breath in, preparing himself for whatever would happen next, whether good or bad. Although, being an optimist at the time, he was sure it would be good. It had to be. He was a young boy. The world was a better place then. 

And, to his relief, it  _ was _ good. 

He approached the door cautiously, sneaking like a shrew, so as not to disturb his mother. 

When he reached it, he turned to knob with the speed of an old, dying horse, trying to be unheard and unseen, like its owner was some kind of highwayman, sneaking around in the night for a carriage to rob.

This was in vain, of course, for the simple reason that his mother’s door creaked— something he had seemingly forgotten.

She looked up.

“What? What is it?”

Adrenaline coursed through Sean’s veins. He had been discovered! 

Much faster than he had been turning the doorknob, as though the horse’s owner had been spotted by the constabulary, he dashed behind the wall.

His mother did not seem to care for his tricks. “Is there something you need?”

Sean poked a bit of his face out from behind the door, taking great care to make sure he could see his mother, and not as great care in assuming she could not see him.

“What do you want?” the woman sighed, frustrated.

He tilted his head so that she could see his whole face.

His mother furrowed her brow. “Do you want to come in?” she asked, her voice sad and world-weary. 

Sean hesitated, his face flushing in the moment. “Yes.”

She tilted her head back and shut her eyes, which Sean could see, in what little light there was, were rimmed with deep, dark bags. Letting out a sigh, she told him, “Then come in.” 

Moving like a mouse from a tavern-maid's broom, the boy entered the room, lifting himself onto the bed. He crawled over the white sheets, flung every which way on the bed, towards his mother, looking at him without expression through her tangled hair. 

Once he was about half a foot away from her, he stopped, sitting on his knees. He searched for his mother’s eyes, tilting his head all manner of directions in an attempt to see past all her hair. 

She had stopped tying it back a long time ago, longer than Sean could count on his hands. And because of this, whenever he saw her, he only saw her obscured face. 

It was about time, he thought, that he saw her whole countenance again. 

It was about time for a lot of things, really. 

His mother blinked. “What are you doing?” 

Sean craned his neck. “Looking.” 

“For what?” 

“You.” 

At this, her face fell, the corners of her mouth turning down into a deep frown. “I’m right here.” she squeaked, her voice hushed to the point of barely being audible. 

Sean wasn’t sure what to make of the comment. He blinked, mumbling a quick “Oh,” before he found himself held in his mother’s arms.

She was leaning awkwardly on the bed, her legs to one side and her torso to the other. The situation with her hands was similar, one holding onto the boy’s back, the other caressing his head.

Her own head was snuggled close up against her son’s, her wet face shielded by his shoulder. 

Sean was taken aback by her sudden affection, although he certainly welcomed it. 

He held both hands onto his mother’s arm, unable to return her embrace in the position she was in. 

She was shaking, he noticed. 

She drew nearer to Sean on the bed, picking him up and setting him on her knee. There, she held him tighter still, rocking the two of them back and forth in the dark. 

It was then that, overwhelmed and overstimulated by the sudden change of events and emotion around him, Sean began to cry as well. He wrapped both his arms around his mother’s chest, trying to hold his own hand on the other side, and dug his chin firmly into her torso, as though he wanted to bury his face in her shift.

She welcomed him to do so, holding him nearly close enough to smother him.

“It’s all very bad right now,” his mother whispered. “isn’t it?” 

His face still pressed against her, Sean nodded. 

“It won’t always be bad…” she reasoned, not sure she could even believe herself. “It can’t be like this forever.”

The boy mumbled something unintelligible into the fabric of her chemise. 

“I can’t hear you when you do that, love.” 

Now, Sean was a stubborn child. So naturally, he only did it again.

His mother sighed, and, not knowing what else to do, continued to stroke her hand through his hair. 

“It will end,” she swallowed. “in time.” 

A moment passed in the darkness. 

She took a shallow breath. “It’s like the winter,” she began. “it’s cold and harsh and unforgiving. That’s what it’s like now. But over time,” she hesitated. “things will get better. Like how the leaves come back. And the birds and flowers… that’s the spring.”

His mother let go of him briefly, reaching to her side. Into the void, Sean thought. 

She let out a sigh, as heavy as a blizzard, and fiddled with something in her hands. 

“Now, it takes a long time for spring to come, doesn’t it?” 

Sean nodded. 

“It does. Things aren’t going to get better overnight, but— eventually, they will.”she blinked. “Eventually…” 

Sean heard the sound of two things striking together. 

In between him and his mother, a flame lit, and for the first time, he could see her full face as she pressed the flint to the wick of the candle at her side. 

Her matted hair was pushed to one side of her face, wrapped around her neck and over her shoulder. Her eyes, two deep black trenches, gleaned in the light. 

She turned to Sean.

“One day it will be spring,” she whispered with tears in her eyes. “One day it will be spring.”

That night had changed his mother. Not in the same way as his father’s death, of course. But it had changed her. Sean knew that for certain.

Since then, she had seen him differently. Perhaps he had proven himself to be more understanding than his mother had thought. Perhaps, he thought, that was the first time she saw a piece of his father in him. 

Standing now in front of her door, in the same spot his father’s blood had spilled twenty years ago to the day, in the dead of winter, the young man was relieved to see the flame of a candle illuminating his mother’s room. 

It gave him a sense of hope, if you will; confidence in his ability to help her. It was a reminder of that afternoon in her bedchamber. 

But standing there, perhaps overpowering his hope, he also felt dread. He feared what his mother would say to him. There seems to be no adequate word for it in English, but it was the fear that his mother would say something wrong, more specifically, something that would hurt him without her knowing that so terrified him.

She had a tendency, you see, to falsely assume things about her son. She assigned traits to him that he did not, in fact, possess. 

Traits she had known in someone else. Someone that Sean just couldn’t be. 

He tried to shake off the feeling. To hell with it, he thought. The best thing he could do, if he wanted to avoid conversations of that particular nature, was move from where he stood. 

After all, he was no corpse in the parlor. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the wise words of Stanley “Stanford” Pines— “He may look little, but he has big plans!”


	23. Here Lyes Buried

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kyoko visits a graveyard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now it’s time to get 
> 
> f u n K y
> 
> Ya’ll ready for some of that hot pre-spelling reform English script? 
> 
> (Don’t worry it’s not that hard.)
> 
> Just remember that ye means the, and also for some reason they sometimes wrote the e over the y.
> 
> It’ll make more sense in a minute. Just keep going, and I’ll see you at the end.

If it were not for the rarity of the whole situation, Kyoko would not have stayed in New York. If it were up to her, she thought, she’d be back in Philadelphia, sitting with her daughter on the sofa, working diligently on her needlepoint. 

But, as she had come to realize, it was not up to her. In twists of fate and bends of reality so pitiful only William Shakespeare could write them, the past week and a half had seen magical dreams, near-death experiences, and irony so painful it could bring a fully grown man to tears. 

And the poor Madame Kyoko Beckett was left to sit and watch whatever happened to her and her family, be it good, bad, or even fatal. 

Oh, by mercy’s name, how she hated it! 

She did not want to be played, like a piece on a chessboard, by the hand of fate, or, as seemed more and more likely, the dead sea witch Ethelein. 

She wanted, more than anything, to have a say in her own life. It was a trait her mother had passed down to her, no doubt; the desire for more in her life. 

Or perhaps she had obtained it while on her mother’s ship. Exposure to so much action and fantasy, she figured, must have muddled her brains to the point where reality— or the everyday tasks of a well-behaved woman, seemed dull. 

Looking back on it, it really wasn’t that her life had been  _ boring _ . Quite the contrary, actually. 

It was more so the idea of her not being in control of her own life. After all, she did not decide to be born to her parents. She did not decide, at the age of eight, to be at the center of a ruthless witch hunt. Nor did she decide to leave her mother’s house for Philadelphia so many years ago.

But what bothered her the most was this simple truth of life: she did not decide what other people thought of her.

In her own mind, she was a respectable woman, the wife of a respectable man, and the matriarch of an overall respectable family. She was by no means the pinnacle of elegance or nobility, but she, along with her family, made ends meet, and for that she was thankful. 

Now, in reality, she was not so simple. Everyone she had ever met had seen her differently. They all had a different idea of her, and, hell, some of them were not even her at all, but a persona. A concept of a woman that may or may not have really existed. A young girl or a grown woman, Kyoko Cox or Ruth Holmann, the daughter of Anthony Cox or John Lennon, an innocent girl or a wicked witch.

And for the people of New York, that idea was that she did not exist at all. She was, for lack of a better word, nothing but a distant memory. 

She discovered this one morning while out running errands for her mother. The old woman had sent her to fetch a pound of salted cod, a pound of parsnips, half a pound of beans, and, if she could find it, applejack. 

It was a more or less simple expedition, seeing as how she had grown rather familiar with the town. Just a short trip to the market square, which, at the hour, should not have been very crowded. 

And, in truth, she had no trouble finding the groceries. None of the vendors of the market were downright rude to her, although she had found herself subject to some strange looks. Still, she thought, it was nothing compared to what would have happened if her mother had gone herself. 

No, the trouble only came, like cicadas emerging from underground, while the woman was on her way back to her mother’s house.

She kept her head down, shielding her face from the blizzard around her. She should have left earlier, she thought. If she had left just a half-hour sooner, then she would have avoided the storm. But, of course, she had gotten distracted listening to Sir Harrison speak of the rain in Madras. He made it sound like quite a spectacle, and she had always been drawn to stories of fantastic proportions. 

She thought back to his descriptions of the town, wondering how it would feel to walk in the streets with water up to her ankles, when a loud and bothersome squawk, sprung forth from a bird not of paradise, but of hell, interrupted her train of thought.

She snapped her head up towards the sound, but saw nothing.

The sound rang out again, this time more high-pitched, and, somehow, more irritating.

Kyoko turned around the other way, now facing a small white chapel, obscured by the unceasing snowfall. 

The bird squawked a third time, and it was then that the woman could finally see it, the crane’shead peeking out from the storm, standing in all its morbidity atop a lopsided gravestone. 

She took a step back, her basket hanging from her arm. 

The creature just stood, staring.

“Leave!” she commanded, her pupils small. “Did I not make myself clear enough the first time?” 

It shifted its weight in response, turning its rope-neck down to look at the headstone. 

Kyoko shook her head angrily, her face growing hot despite the freezing temperature. “What are you doing there, you beast? Have you no respect for the dead?” 

The crane fluttered its wings, drawing its head back and lifting itself into the air before landing again above the tomb. It let out a small chirp. 

“A pox on you,” the woman muttered. “it would do us all much good.” 

With that, a flushed face, and the growing sense of fear she felt watching the creature, Kyoko began to walk away, shifting her basket so that it hung further up her arm.

Although she did not lack fish, nor parsnips or anger, the woman lacked greatly in foresight, at least when it came to the bird. She greatly underestimated its determination, as well as its persistence and wit. 

Which is why, when the crane came running up behind her on its long legs, grabbing the hem of her skirt with the force of a Roman military officer leading a charge for conquest, she screamed.

“Oh heavens!” she cried. “Oh, for the sake of Saint Peter, someone please help me!” 

The woman tried to take a step forward, but the bird only pulled back harder, trying to step backwards towards the graveyard. 

“It’s trying to kill me!” she said, hysterical. “Lord up above, it’s going to drag me to the tomb!” 

Finally, the crane released her skirt, letting out a loud and desperate cry. 

Kyoko grabbed its fabric, lifting it up as high as she could while maintaining a shred of modesty. In her arms, she shifted her basket, choosing to ignore the parsnip that slipped out into the snow. It would have to be left behind, she figured. 

Holding up her skirt, she began to run, screaming bloody murder as her boots plowed through the snow, kicking it every which way around her. Several times she had nearly tripped, which did not help her nerves at all. 

She made it as far as Whittock Street before she had to turn around, both because she found herself out of breath, and because she found her basket to be much lighter. 

Wheezing, she turned to look at it. 

The cloth she had placed atop her groceries had vanished, along with, to her dread, all of her parsnips. 

A chill ran down her spine. They must have flown off while she was fleeing the scene.

And not wanting to put good food to waste, she had no choice but to turn around and fetch them— no choice but to turn around and face the bird. 

Standing taught, the woman spun around very slowly, trying to assess the damage. 

And to her surprise, there wasn’t much. She was relieved to find that the bird was not chasing her, at least, not with ill-intent. Now, make no mistake, it  _ was  _ directly behind her, but it met her eyes with compassion, the way a hound looks at a man feeding it scraps from a tavern. And in its beak, rolled horizontally, were two parsnips, their stems hanging out of its mouth like pipes. 

Kyoko furrowed her brow as the creature extended its rope-neck to her. She backed away, and did not hold out her hand.

In response, the crane lurched its head forward at her, trying to hand her the parsnips. The woman frowned, but cautiously took a step forward. 

She did not want to extend her hand, she thought, for fear the bird might bite her. So instead she held out her basket, her head tilted away from the crane, her suspicious eyes locked onto its. 

One by one, it dropped the vegetables from its mouth. They fell into the basket with a soft  _ plunk _ . 

At the sound, the crane fluttered off, landing skittishly on the ground ahead, and retrieved two more of the long white parsnips from the snow.

To Kyoko’s amazement, the creature was helping her. She extended her basket a second time, and, just as before, the bird rolled the vegetables inside. 

Once it had done so, it looked up, turning around a full three-hundred and sixty degrees to make sure all the parsnips had been retrieved and properly stored. And while it searched, it caught sight of a thick white cloth drifting away in the harsh winds. 

It cawed, springing itself into the air with the heavy ruffling of its wings, and moved up above Kyoko’s head haphazardly, its body jerking around, trying to reach the cloth before it flew off. 

On accident, it scratched the woman’s face with its talons. Not hard enough to draw blood, but hard enough to hurt. She drew back at the pain with a yelp, the pads of her fingers lightly grazing what would surely become a scar in a matter of days. 

The bird turned its head down to her, blinking rapidly. Seeing that it had caused her pain, it let out a frightened squawk, and returned immediately to the ground.

Kyoko sighed, opening her eyes to see the crane’s, deep and murky, and glimmering in the blizzard. Its breathing was staggered and heavy, no doubt from its tumultuous flight. Tilting its head just slightly to the left, it chirped a low tune, one that picked up at the end interrogatively. 

Kyoko blinked, causing the bird to repeat itself. 

“Thank you very much for the scratch,” she scoffed, rubbing her face. 

The crane turned its head to the ground, ashamed. For a moment, the two stood in silence, a sort of stalemate between them, one in which neither knew what to say or do. 

Finally, Kyoko let out a deep breath. “I suppose I should be on my way now.” she said. “Thank you for the parsnips.”

The bird met her eyes and let out a soft, whiny chirp in protest. 

“What?” she sighed. “Do you have something more to torture me with?” 

The creature nodded excitedly.

“Then I do not wish to know what it is.” Kyoko deadpanned, turning around.

Again the bird cried out in protest, this time louder. 

The woman said nothing, and began to walk away. 

But as she did so, she could not help but notice the sound of the crane’s fluttering wings. Hearing it, she turned one more time to face it.

She could see it perched in the graveyard, right above the same headstone it had been on before. 

Upon seeing her turn around, it said nothing, but instead tapped one of its talons, the same one that had scratched her, on the inscription of the stone. 

Pleased to see it was no longer attempting to come near her, Kyoko decided it could do her no harm to read the epitaph. 

_ HERE LYES BURIED _

_ Yͤ BODY OF  _

_ KYOKO LENNON _

_ Yͤ DAUGHTER OF  _

_ JOHN AND YOKO LENNON _

_ AGED 8 YEARS _

_ DIED DECR Yͤ 24 _

_ 1 7 1 1 _

In its horrible, mocking voice, ripe with sharp intonation and shrill grittiness, the crane whispered, “The dead girl lives.” 

The front door swung open with such force Yoko was certain it would break. 

“Mother!” Kyoko cried, clutching tightly onto a basket of fish, parsnips, and beans. “Oh, Mother, it was so terrible!”

Her daughter rushed into the parlor, her face flushed from the cold, and placed the basket of groceries in a slapdash manner. 

“What?” Yoko asked. “What has happened?”

The woman was hysterical. “Oh it was simply awful!” she said. “I have never in my life seen something so horrible!”

“What did you see?”

Kyoko pressed her open palm to her bosom, feeling her rapid pulse underneath her dress. “It was that wicked bird!” she spat. “That blasted, no-good, shag-bag bird, diseased by the devil in its very soul and flesh, had better leave this town for good in the coming days, or else I shall…” she stammered, visibility upset. “I shall… I shall seize it by its damned neck with my own two hands and throttle it until it can no longer breathe!” 

It was then Yoko realized the severity of the situation. Though she had only known her grown daughter a short time, she had never known her to curse— not unless something was very,  _ very  _ wrong. 

“What has it done?” she asked, frightened. 

Kyoko shook her head. “It grabbed me by the skirt, the beast, and nearly dragged me towards my own grave!” The woman lifted her eyes to heaven. “I escaped, thank the Lord, but when I turned around, it sat atop a headstone!” She drew in a deep breath, her voice cracking in her hysteria. “And the inscription on it…” she began. “It was so terrible, Mother, I wish not to speak of it.” 

Yoko blinked. “Kyoko, you must!”

Her daughter’s face grew pale, no doubt due to her hyperventilation, as she fanned herself with her hand.

“Kyoko, love,” her mother sighed, placing a hand on the woman’s back. “you mustn’t worry so! You are about to faint!”

“Perhaps I am,” Kyoko said. “I fear you may be right.” 

Yoko turned around on the sofa so that she faced the doorway. “Dhani,” she called. “George! One of you go fetch Kyoko a glass of water before she faints!” 

The sound of stumbling could be heard in the hallway, followed by a quick, “Aye, Madame! Right away!” from the young Sir Harrison. 

Yoko returned to face her daughter. “Now tell me, please, what the headstone said.”

Kyoko sighed, drawing her hand to her cheek as she fought back tears. She traced her fingers over her scar, finding odd comfort in the pain it caused.

Seeing this, her mother’s face fell. “Are you hurt?” she asked frantically. 

The woman shook her head, accepting a glass dripping with water from Dhani, who had just rushed into the room. “No,” she spoke. “I am well enough.” 

Yoko blinked, untrusting.

Her daughter met her eyes. “Believe me, Mother, I am fine. ‘Tis only a scratch marked onto me by the bird.”

Dhani raised his eyebrows. “You saw it?” he asked.

“Aye. It showed me a grave while I walked near the harbor.” Kyoko drew in a deep breath, pausing to sip her water. She swallowed it before continuing, “And the inscription on it read my own name.” 

Yoko frowned, casting her gaze away from her daughter.

Dhani gasped. 

“It said that I had died at the age of eight...” The woman rubbed the fabric of her skirt through her index finger and her thumb. Suddenly, she turned to her mother. “And my date of death was Christmas Eve,” she noted. “on the same night Father came and—” 

“Aye.” Yoko said, cutting her off. She sighed, rolling her head back. As she leveled it, she opened her eyes. “I know the grave you speak of.” 

Dhani and Kyoko both furrowed their brows. 

“You do?” the young man asked. 

The old woman nodded. “It has been there for quite some time.” 

“I don’t understand…” Kyoko muttered, her eyes glazing over.

Yoko crossed her arms. Meeting her daughter’s gaze, she began, “Do you remember how the Widow Chandler accused us of witchcraft?” 

Kyoko nodded. “How could I ever forget? The constabulary barged in near daily!” Her face flushed in anger. “They came in, and they cut your hair, and then—”

Yoko raised her eyebrows, her tone lilting. “Easy now,” she said. “easy…” 

Her daughter sighed, a frown crossing her face. 

“Well,” the old woman continued. “when your father…” she trailed off, unsure how to describe the situation. “when you  _ left _ ,” she settled, “that belief was still rampant. The town still thought John and I were witches—”

Dhani cleared his throat. “He would be a  _ warlock _ , Madame.” 

“Right. Either way, they didn’t like us. And your, shall we say,  _ disappearance _ certainly didn’t help us.”

Kyoko tilted her head, her eyes betraying fear, the same way they had as a young girl. “What do you mean?”

The old woman pursed her lips. “They thought,” her voice cracked, “that we had killed you.” 

A hush fell over the three.

“They said all sorts of things in those days,” Yoko continued. “horrible, untrue things. Rumors, you know. But that…” she faltered. “that was by far the worst.”

Kyoko drew a hand over her mouth. “Mother…” she whispered. “I never meant to—”

Yoko did not hear her. “They said we had killed you; we had murdered you with an axe as a sacrifice to the devil… and Madame Pang— do you remember her?”

“I- I do, yes.” 

“Poor Madame Pang...” The old woman shook her head. “they claimed that she was our accomplice. She had, as they put it, aided in clearing the scene of your body and blood. It was a shame;” she blinked. “she didn’t deserve it.” 

“So they built me a grave?” Kyoko asked.

Yoko looked up. “Pardon?” 

“They built me a grave because they thought you had killed me?”

“Oh yes,” her mother said. “exactly. It was the idea of Mister Barlowe’s wife. Unfortunately I cannot remember her name.” Yoko paused. “You know, she died in childbirth the next year, actually. After that,” she laughed. “the whole town was up in arms. They thought we got her, too.” 

Kyoko frowned at her mother’s rambling. “So then, the appearance of the grave is no fault of the bird’s?” 

“No, no,” Yoko assured. “it is only the fault of the townspeople.” 

Seeing her daughter unhappy, she continued. “You needn’t worry, Kyoko. All of that— those accusations of witchcraft, that fear of being apprehended, that all is passed.” 

The woman looked at the ground as she said, “This town believes me to be dead, Mother.”

“Well, you don’t, do you?”

At this, Kyoko grew frustrated. She had forgotten her mother’s tendency to speak vaguely, if not completely in riddles. “No,” she sighed. “I do not.”

“Then it matters not.” Yoko stood up from the sofa, holding onto her daughter’s shoulder for support. “As I said, all that is passed. The townspeople have moved on.” 

“Have they?” Kyoko asked. “Have they really?”

Her mother rubbed her temple. “For the most part, anyway.” 

Kyoko pursed her lips. 

“You’ll be leaving here soon enough, love.” the old woman said. “In the meantime, worry not of such matters.”

“I must worry about the bird, Mother. We all must. Don’t you remember what it did to Julian?”

Yoko shrugged. “Then worry about the bird, but not of the townspeople.” 

Before Kyoko could respond, her mother left the parlor, stating that she had something to look for.

That left just her and Dhani. 

She turned to him. 

“Do you think it’s some sort of omen?” she asked. 

The young man shrugged. “Perhaps.” 

“Do you think the bird wants me dead?” 

Dhani sighed. “I think I should leave now.” 

“Oh,” Kyoko blinked. “my apologies. It was not my intention to bore y—”

“There is no need to apologize, Madame Beckett.” The young man tapped his foot against the floor. “I must speak to my father, that is all.” 

“Of course.” The woman curtsied. “In that case, I bid you well.” 

Dhani nodded. “Thank you.” 

Upstairs, George awoke to the sound of the door closing. He coughed on the bed, and then, having returned from his slumber, opened his eyes to see his son standing in front of him with wild eyes. 

“Are you well?” he asked.

The old man nodded, reaching for his handkerchief. “Aye, do not worry about me.” He sat up in bed, shaking his head of any remaining drowsiness. “Is there something you need?”

Dhani crossed his arms as he sat down. “You did not tell me they were witches, Father.” 

George blinked. “I beg your pardon?” 

“You did not tell me we would be staying with  _ witches _ .”

The old man was, for lack of a better word, dumbfounded. His brow furrowed, his mouth curled into a frown, and his eyes narrowed into slits as he asked, “Where on earth did you get that idea?”

“The Madames Beckett and Lennon revealed it all to me,” he explained. “They spoke lengthily of how they and the late Mister Lennon were suspected of the dark arts, along with the murder of the young Madame Beckett.”

George reached for his pipe. Lighting it, he began, “You forget, my boy, that suspicion is not the same thing as confirmation. It is very dangerous to think otherwise.” 

“Of that I am aware.” Dhani said. And understanding the severity of such an accusation, he went on, “Believe me. But all evidence points to the idea that they may be.” 

His father closed his eyes, deep wrinkles forming on his forehead. “Son, I’ve known their family a very long time, and you must listen to me when I say—”

The young man cut him off. “Do you think Julian and Sean are also warlocks?” 

George sent a silent prayer to whoever was willing to listen. “As a matter of fact, I do not. They are both men of sound morals and good renown. Of that I am certain.”

A moment of silence passed, so he continued, “It matters not. What you must understand is that no one in our midst is practicing black magic. They have no reason nor will to do so.” 

Dhani chuckled. “See, that is where you are wrong.”

His father cocked an eyebrow. “How so?” 

“Well, think about it! Since we’ve arrived, what have we seen?” The young man did not wait for an answer. “The bird, of course! The one that’s caused so much trouble; it must be a sort of familiar. An imp, perhaps, of one of them. A shadowy form constructed for the sole purpose of—”

“Dhani, I assure you with utmost sincerity—”

“It  _ would  _ explain its strange appearance.”

Here George fell into a coughing spell, smoke sputtering out of his mouth as he hacked into his handkerchief.

Dhani’s eyes went wide. “Father?” he asked. “Are you well?” 

The old man could not answer as he gasped for breath, causing his son to rush over to him, his face flushing.

“Father?” he repeated frantically. “Father, must I send for a doctor?” 

George tossed a hand towards his son. “Nay,” he gasped. “nay, I am well now.” 

A minute passed in stillness, no sound to be heard but the delicate rising and falling of George’s chest, along with his heavy, panting breaths.

Finally, he spoke up, his voice coming out low and shaky. “Its appearance,” he said, “is the result of his being the sea witch Ethelein.” He paused to catch his breath. “See, he was always like that. A blue jay to me, a seabird to Ringo, a blackbird to Macca… so needless to say, the bird is certainly not anyone’s familiar.” He but his lip. “Except maybe Ethelein’s.” 

Dhani took a step back towards the bed, his face pale. “But that still doesn’t mean—” he faltered. “It still could be that—”

“No, Dhani.” George met his eye. “For the sake of the both of us, along with the whole company, I need to be sure that you do not busy yourself with ideas of Madame Lennon, along with her entire family, being witches.” He paused. “Do you understand that?”

His son did not look at him. He tapped his foot. “I do,” he sighed. “although I’m afraid I cannot help it.” 

“Dhani, please, you must think logically here—”

Dhani turned to him. “Father. Please. Let me continue.” 

“Very well then,” George grumbled. 

“I cannot help but think that there may be witches and warlocks among us—not when the evidence is so clear, made apparent by the hand of fate, and vested in me by unholy spirits.” 

His father’s face fell. In his eyes, Dhani saw frustration. He was exhausted, it looked like. Exhausted of his shenanigans.

“If this has to do with your idea of being possessed,” George began. “then I’ll have none of it.”

“It is true!” the young man protested. 

“It is not.” 

Dhani felt his face grow hot. “What do you know if it’s true or not?” he asked a little louder than he needed to. “You haven’t seen what I’ve seen, haven’t- haven’t witnessed what I have!”

“Perhaps not,” George said sternly. “but I know that you are my son, and that no son of mine should have his soul stolen by the devil!”

“Then perhaps I am not your son!” Dhani shouted.

“That is a lie and you know it!”

For a minute, they stood silent, neither knowing what to say. 

“I’m sorry…” Dhani finally spoke. “I just—” He shut his eyes tight, placing a hand to his temple. Below, his foot tapped wildly, like a rabbit escaping the claws of a fox, but caught up in a bramble along the way. “I will be perfectly honest with you, Father, I don’t trust any of them. Not Madame Lennon, nor her daughter or son, nor Julian or the mermen. In fact, I fear what their motives may be in bringing us here.” 

“Their motive,” George sighed. “was to reunite us with one another, so that we all might celebrate the companionship we’ve found in each other one last time before our eventual deaths.” 

Dhani shifted his weight. “And so the bird just sort of… materialized from thin air? Was his arrival planned as well?” 

“No!” the old man shook his head. “No, that- that was not supposed to happen at all!” 

“I fear they are out to get us.” Dhani said. 

“Which they most certainly are not.”

“You think not?” 

“Absolutely not. With the certainty that the sky is blue, absolutely not.” 

“Then tell me,” the young man proposed. “is it just out of coincidence that shortly before our invitation arrived, you fell ill? When you were bedridden eleven days and the doctor feared you would not survive?”

“It is.” 

“Is it out of coincidence that while sailing here, I dreamed so violently of the night you were attacked that I had to be talked out of my living nightmare and could not sleep for three nights afterwards?”

George frowned. “Yes, Dhani! That is not a new occurrence! Hell, that’s been happening for at least a year, now!” 

Outside, the wind died down. The two of them could hear a carriage passing along the road. Dhani turned to look at it.

“Don’t you remember how badly you wished to come here?” George asked quietly. “Heavens, you practically begged me…”

“I would not have come,” the young man sighed. “if I had known it would only worsen my condition.” He turned around. “You said this would be good for me.” Looking at his shoes, he laughed. “How horribly wrong you were…” 

“Maybe there is something you can learn from this.” George suggested. 

His son chuckled. “How to exorcise myself, perhaps?”

“Nay.” The old man took a deep breath. “Perhaps how to let go of your fears. Just… release all your worries of possession and witchcraft, distrust for the company… become a new person.” He nodded to himself. “A better person.”

Dhani blinked.

“If my time with the crew could do that for me, then I’ve no doubt it could do the same for you.” George smiled. “Now, why don’t we go check in on Madames Lennon and Beckett?” 

“You may do that,” his son sighed. “although I shan’t come with you. I’ve already spoken to them.” 

George mulled over this. “I see.” Neatly folding his handkerchief, he stood up. “In that case, take care. I shall see you soon enough.” 

Dhani nodded. “Aye.”

And with that, his father left the room.   
  


Some hours later, the young Sir Harrison found himself back in the parlor. He was by himself this time— the others were enjoying a game of brusquembille, although he was not particularly interested in the game.

So he sat at the harpsichord, mindlessly playing whatever came to mind, and wishing sorely he had thought to bring his violin. 

Finally, when he had had enough of his own music, he stood up and neared the bookshelf, figuring that he might as well read to pass time.

He stood with his hands on his hips in front of the books’ spines, eyeing each one with no particular scrutiny. In his head, he reasoned that the first book he chose might as well be the one he read. There was no use in agonizing over his choice of text, after all. 

So when he found himself called to one book in particular, its tar-black cover taunting him to pull it out, he did so. 

And he was very surprised, shocked even, to open it, and read its title. For you see, it read,  _ Daemonologie, in Form of a Dialogue, Divided Into Three Books: By the High and Mighty Prince, James by the Grace of God King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland.  _

And although he had not officially declared Kyoko’s sighting of her own grave an omen, he supposed the least he could do was take the book as a sign from both the gods and the dead King James. 

That is to say, the least he could do was read it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See! How hard was that? Look at you, being all knowledgeable about Early Modern English! I’m proud of you!
> 
> Edit: waIT OH SWEET HEAVENS TO MR. KITE WE HIT 69,000 WORDS 
> 
> niiiiiice


	24. Oh, Calamity!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a second dinner is held.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, I know this chapter took longer than usual, but don’t despair! I haven’t lost motivation— quite the opposite, in fact. It was just a bit hard to write at first. But it’s all polished now!   
> New chapter should be out soon... in the meantime, enjoy this one! And as always, keep your wits about you.

_ … The Devil is permitted at some times to put himself in the likeness of the Saints, it is plain in the Scriptures, where it is said, that  _ Satan can transform himself into an Angel of light.  _ Neither could that bring any inconvenient with the visions of the Prophets, since it is most certain, that God will not permit him so to deceive his own: but only such, as first willingly deceives themselves, by running unto him, whom God then suffers to fall in their own snares, and justly permits them to be illuded with great efficacy of deceit, because they would not believe the truth (as Paul saith). _

Dhani had not yet explored past the first chapter of the book, and yet had found such a rich deal of information in its text that, if he were not a man determined to see his goals through to the end, he would have put it down then and there.

Even in the preface, such helpful information was stored that the young man could lay prostrate on the ground and thank the gods for his discovery of the book. 

For example, the former king introduced before the dialogue that made up the text even began, that in the sixth chapter of the first book, he proved witches’ ability to cast and cure illnesses. 

Whether these illnesses afflicted merely the body, or the soul as well, or perhaps both, Dhani was not sure. He supposed he would have to read on to find out. 

Which, naturally, he took up no issue in doing. A full knowledge of the magical craft, along with the attributes of a witch or warlock, and the appropriate causes and punishments pertaining to each, would most certainly aid him in his quest for… 

He frowned. What was his quest for, exactly?

It was not that he sought to punish Madame Lennon and her family; that was a matter best fit for the constabulary, or even the clergy. 

But then, did he even wish to see them punished? Be they witches or not, he figured, they were still his hosts in New York. 

He shook his head, trying to rid his mind of the thought. Of course they must be punished! They were, without so much as a doubt, responsible for the ailment of his soul, and perhaps for his father’s illness as well. 

Not to mention the bird! That thing had been terrorizing them for weeks.

But what was interesting about its actions, he thought, was that it seemed to specifically target the Madame’s family. It had first appeared as Madame Lennon attempted to duel his father, and then had come again to taunt Madame Beckett. Following that, it appeared in Julian’s dreams and tossed him in the river. Then it came again in Madame Lennon’s parlor, causing her to lose her composure in the days prior. 

If it were one of them controlling the bird, if it were a familiar of theirs, he realized, then they would have to be attacking themself. Perhaps to cast away suspicion? But… no, that didn’t make sense. 

There was one person he was leaving out of the equation— one person, apart from the above, that seemed awfully friendly to the bird. One person the creature hadn’t yet attacked. 

His train of thought was interrupted by the clamor of voices in the dining room. 

“If that is the case,” Kyoko said. “then someone must be sent to retrieve them all.” 

Dhani turned around to face the room.

“I can go,” his father offered. “if it pleases you.” 

Yoko tapped her fingers on the table. “Are you not too ill to send for them in the storm?” 

“Oh,” George scoffed. “I shall be perfectly fine.” He laughed. “You know, with that attitude, Captain, I say, you really do sound like—”

Dhani stood in the doorway. “Who is it that must be sent for?”

His father and Yoko turned to face him, but it was Kyoko who spoke. 

“My mother wishes to send for the mermen, Julian, and Sean.” She said. “We would like to try and analyze the sea witch’s writings this evening.”

The young man frowned. “Is that so?”

“Aye,” replied Yoko. “and it is your father who has offered to go, although I think him too ill for the task.”

Dhani’s face fell. “Oh, certainly!” He met his father’s gaze. “It will only aggravate your lungs… oh, it will be awful!”

George shook his head. 

“Please, Father, stay here.”

“Someone must go!” 

Suddenly, an idea struck Dhani. Automatically, like water freezing into ice, he slipped his book into his coat pocket and opened his mouth. “I can go.” he said. “It shall be of no trouble to me.” 

Kyoko grew confused. “Shall you not become lost?” 

“Nay, I’m sure I could find them.” he paused. “If you would just give me directions.” 

The Madame of the house puckered her lips. “Are you certain?”

Dhani sighed. “Not certain, no, but hopeful.” He crossed his arms, the light from the window illuminating his right shoulder. “I have been in the city some time, you know.”

“Dhani,” George spoke, his brow furrowed high on his face. “we just arrived here a fortnight ago!”

“I ran those errands for Madame Beckett, remember? She sent me off to find maize in the market square!” 

The old man shook his head. “That was once!”

Yoko shrugged. “Well, he doesn’t live too far from there…” 

Her old crewmate turned to her, bewildered. “You are encouraging this?” 

“Not encouraging it, per se.” the old woman began. “I am only making a point. He does not live far from the market square.” She nodded slowly. “It’s just south of there… and then you make a left once you reach the trail at the end of Berk Street… then forward one hundred paces, and then a left into the woods.” She paused. “From there, you just continue East, and you’re there.” 

George blinked. 

“You cannot miss his house. There’s nothing else around it for about a mile.”

In his mind, Dhani repeated the information. “That’s the way there?”

“Aye, I’ve walked it many a time.”

He placed his hands on his hips. “Then that is the way I’m headed.” 

His father frowned. “If you are so certain about this, then all I can tell you is to take care not to get lost.” 

“I shall.” 

Kyoko set her hands on the table. “And make sure Julian brings the journal.” She adjusted her cap, straightening it upon her head. “We wouldn’t want to all gather here and be without the sea witch’s writings, now, would we?” 

“Nay, Madame. I shall tell him.” 

Her mother, or rather, Yoko, tilted her head. “Shall you also retrieve the mermen?” 

Dhani pursed his lips. “I’m afraid I know not the way to the harbor…” 

“That’s alright.” the old woman nodded. “I’m sure one of the boys could take you there. If you just find them first.” 

The young man smiled. “Of course.” He blinked, and taking in a deep breath, realized he had better be off. “Well,” he announced. “I shall be back shortly. And with everyone I must find!”

The three at the table bid him goodbye, his father taking particular care to warn him of a whole slew of things, included, but not limited to beggars, brambles, bears, and beavers. 

Dhani assured he would heed his warnings, even if the madame of the house scoffed at the thought of beavers being a great danger. And then, after turning around, but before stepping out into the cold, he added, “And thank you, Madame Lennon. For the directions.” 

The old woman blinked. “Of course.”

As the sun set across the horizon, and a wintry wind swept over the street, tossing cloaks and scarves every which way, the door to the lone house in the woods opened, radiating a red warmth from inside. 

Still in his smock, Sean smiled, confused at the sight in front of him. 

“Good evening, Dhani.” he greeted. “Whatever brings you here?” 

Dhani did not return the courtesy of a smile, made wary of disguises in his earlier reading. He felt the book weigh down his pocket. “I am here on behalf of your mother.” he said. 

Curious about the nature of the young man’s belongings, his eyes drifted inside the house. 

“Oh.” Sean lost his smile. “Does she need something of us?”

The young man nodded. “Aye, she requests your presence at her house.” 

Sean turned to something beyond Dhani’s scope of visibility, his brow furrowing. A frown crossed his face, and a twinge of conflict appeared in his eyes. 

Dhani tried in vain to figure out what he was looking at. Without barging into the house, which, he admitted to himself,  _ was  _ tempting, all he could see was a flight of uncarpeted wooden stairs, a scratched table, and a couple of chairs. Out of the corner of his right eye, he also saw half of a sofa, although it was mostly obscured from view. 

“Must we leave now?” Sean asked. “I was going to pick some strawberries…” 

Dhani cocked an eyebrow. He had never had a strawberry, seeing that they did not grow in Madras. But despite the fact that he had never eaten one, he had a sneaking suspicion they did not grow in the winter. Hell, he bet nothing could grow in the American winter. 

“At this time of year?”

The other man shifted his weight. “Well, yes… it’s a rather interesting situation, you see. I awoke a number of days ago to find Julian staring at my f—”

As if by magic, or, more realistically, extremely good timing, Julian appeared in the doorway, rolling his eyes far back in his skull. He looked at Dhani.

“Please tell me you’re here to talk him out of eating the strawberries,” he begged. 

Sean turned to him, scowling. “I already chopped all the raisins!” 

Dhani blinked. “I am only here to send for the two of you, Mister Lennon.”

Julian frowned. “You needn’t refer to me in that way, Dhani. I already told you that.” 

The young man drew back, his face flushed. “Forgive me,” he said. “it slipped my mind.” 

“Of course.” Julian nodded. “Now what’s this about sending for us?” 

“My mother asks that we come to her house.” Sean explained. 

“Is she alright?”

The man’s half-brother shrugged. “I know not,” he said, pointing his thumb out at Dhani. “ask him.” 

Julian met the young man’s eyes. “Is she?”

“Aye,” Dhani sighed. “although she wishes to go over the sea witch’s writings this evening. Hence, she sent for me to send for you, and together we must send for Macca and Ringo.” 

Taking a moment to absorb the information, Julian’s eyes lit up. “Oh! Of course!” he exclaimed, grinning. Holding out a pointed finger to the young man, he said, “You wait one minute, I must find the prophecy.”

Sean turned to him as he advanced on the stairs. “But what about the raisins?” he cried. 

Julian turned around puzzled, leaning on his side. “What was that?”

“What am I supposed to do about the raisins?” Sean raised his voice just a bit. 

His half-brother let out a long breath. “I’m not sure… just- figure it out!” He began to climb up the stairs, still leaning to hear Sean. “Put ‘em in a bowl or something; you can bring them with you. I’m sure Yoko will appreciate it.” 

With that, he disappeared upstairs, leaving Sean to groan in the hallway. 

He shook his head, grumbling. “Oh, for all the work I did…” Then, hearing the man’s foot tapping in the snow, he sighed. “Why don’t you come in. I must find a bowl for those raisins, and God knows where Julian put that thing.” 

Dhani was prudent of the offer. Not because he did not wish to impose upon the man, for he had been invited inside. Rather, he was unwilling to step into the home of a witch. Or, as he swiftly corrected himself, a  _ potential  _ witch. 

His father had been right the night before, he thought, in the idea that suspicion was unequal to confirmation. 

It was suspicion, after all, that had led to the old man’s own accusation of witchcraft. And when mistaken for confirmation, its consequences on the human mind were toxic. Nothing justified that so much as that evening on the last day of the previous year. Which, as Dhani suddenly realized, was swiftly approaching.

He shuddered at the thought. Remembering that warm winter’s evening, hearing the frantic, intermingled voices of his mother and father, rushing down the stairs, sheer terror in his every muscle, and the blood. By God, he thought, by the time he had found his father, there had been blood everywhere.

He couldn’t stand the memories all flooding back to him. At least, not all at the same time. 

Which is why, just as his breathing began to pick up, he was relieved to hear Sean’s voice drawing him back to New York. 

“Come in, please.” he said. “I don’t want you standing out in the cold.” 

Nodding wordlessly, Dhani took a cautious step inside. 

His immediate instinct was to walk in the direction of the man’s earlier gaze, so that he could get a better look at what he had seen. But, unluckily for him, Sean turned the other way, walking at a brisk pace into the kitchen. 

To the sound of creaking cabinets, the young man from Madras turned around for a quick glimpse in the opposite direction. 

And what he saw…

Well, he couldn’t quite describe it, in all honesty. He shouldn’t have been surprised that the young man had white roses and small, red berries growing right out of the bricks in his wall. After all, he  _ was _ , no,  _ may have been  _ a witch. But seeing the sight…

Hell, who wouldn’t be surprised?

His feet froze in place, all his joints locked. In an almost comical sense, his mouth hung open in an amazed gape. Not a word left his lips. He wasn’t even sure he knew how to speak anymore.

What a pity, he thought. The man who had given him shelter inside his house, shielding him, if only temporarily, from the blizzard outside, was growing… well, he was growing  _ something _ out of his wall! Something evil…

It was then that the young man felt his coat pocket weighed down by the little black book inside. Its words taunted him, haunting him like a ringing in the ear— awful and unwanted, and yet unable to be cast away. 

_ Satan can transform himself into an angel of light. _

Sean crossed his arms at the sight. “You’ve found the wall, have you?”

Dhani turned around to meet his eye. 

“That’s where I was going to get the strawberries… I don’t know how long they’ll stay ripe in here, so my idea was: why not preserve them?” 

Dhani frowned. “Where did they come from?” he asked. “Did you…” 

The other man sighed. “Well, I awoke one morning to find Julian standing in front of the roses, and he was just as surprised as I was! It was the bird, we think.” he laughed. “No, it definitely was... We know because we saw it grow the strawberries!” 

“It grew them?” Dhani cocked an eyebrow. “How?” 

Sean hummed, turning back into the kitchen and scooping handfuls of chopped raisins into a rusty tin bowl. “I’m afraid I don’t know the  _ exact  _ mechanics,” he said. “but I suppose it’s just magic. And I’m not usually one to believe in such things, but at this point, I’ve given up on rationality.” he shook his head. “I suppose one must in an irrational situation.” 

Dhani blinked.

“Either way,” Sean continued. “I want to preserve them, but Julian keeps trying to talk me out of it… He’s convinced they’re poison. And, honestly, he may be onto something.” 

“Right…” 

Again with impeccable timing, Julian came downstairs. 

Sean turned to him. “How do you expect me to cover these, exactly?”

His half-brother thought for a minute. “Do you have a cloth on you?”

“Of course.”

“Then use that.” 

Moving his glasses higher up on the bridge of his nose, Sean gave the two of them a stern look. “If this does not work,” he said. “then you both had better enjoy snow-covered raisins.”

“An American specialty.” Julian joked.

Sean laughed. “Sure is!” 

And as the three made their way outside, holding the covered bowl tightly in his hands, he continued, “Snow is to food of the New York Colony as salt is to meat! I swear on my life, if I had a penny for every time I’ve traveled to the market with a basket of fresh-baked bread on my back, and then, by the time I got there, found the fruits of my labor bearing a sheen not unlike that seen on the ground at this time of year, you may as well give me a sash and call me governor!” 

Dhani did not pay attention to the fellow’s spirited rant. He had much bigger things to worry about.

An hour later, grace had been said, and the greasy smell of fish cakes filled the air. Eager to eat, Ringo grabbed one, tossing the hot mass of meat back and forth in his hands until it cooled. 

Just as he took his first bite, settling the cake in his fingertips, Macca opened his mouth.

“So,” he sighed. “I suppose we should begin by reviewing what magical happenings have befallen us since we all last met.” 

The company all looked at him, each person trying to speak over all the rest. 

He rolled his eyes, leaning back in his chair. “Moons and stars…” he muttered. “One at a time! Please!”

The other seven all fell silent. 

All except Dhani.

“Roses are growing from Sean’s wall.” he explained, nervous. “I saw them with my own eyes!”

Macca raised his eyebrows. A murmur ran across the table. 

“I know. I saw them just the other day. Ringo was there as well.” The siren furrowed his brow. “Is that odd?”

Dhani hung his mouth open in a gape. “Of course it’s odd! It’s the dead of winter!”

“Bare in mind, Dhani,” George began with a wheeze. “that Macca has no knowledge of human culture.” 

“They’re growing out of his  _ wall _ .” 

Ringo came to the siren’s defense, adding to the calamity of clashing voices. “He did not know that was strange!” he urged. 

Macca held out his hand to him. “Alright, alright. We get it. It’s strange.” He waited for the noise to die down. “Now, let’s move on.”

“Julian,” he called. “how did they get there?” 

The man furrowed his brow, his eyes cast towards his plate. “I’m not sure about the roses… but Sean had the brilliant idea of letting the bird inside one night, and it just sort of grew them. Right in front of me.” 

Macca considered this. “That’s certainly odd… what else?”

“Well, you have that pendant,” Sean piped up. “don’t you?”

The siren blinked. “Oh! Yes!” He put a hand to his chest. “I dreamt of Ethelein the other night, and when I awoke, I found his old pendant in my satchel.” 

Yoko sipped her tea. “I, too, dreamt of him.”

“You did?!” Macca cried, bewildered. “When?” 

She shrugged. “Monday night into Tuesday morning.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

The captain set her teacup down. “Must I tell you all my dreams?” she asked. 

“Well, no, but that—” he tossed a hand in the air. “ _ that’s  _ one I’d like to know about!” 

“And now you know.” 

Macca felt as though he was going to disintegrate. How could she not tell him something of such great magnitude? “Did you notice anything unusual in it?”

Yoko thought for a minute. “Yes,” she said slowly. “when John’s wine was poured, strawberries fell into his glass.” 

This drew Sean’s attention. He watched his mother with eager eyes and his fork sank into a roasted parsnip. 

“Alright… did you interact with them at all? Touch them? Stare at them? Something of that nature?”

“I stared at them.”

Macca’s face grew serious. “And then what happened?”

Yoko hesitated, her eyes fixed on her teacup. “I found myself in the street,” she muttered. “and John was shot.” A scowl crossed her face, her eyes narrowing. “And then the next day, the bird came and found his glasses.”

“Is that what had you so upset?” Ringo asked, his face flushed a cool, stormy blue. 

“Aye.”

“Oh…” Macca puckered his lips. “My apologies, I was not aware—”

“You are forgiven.” The captain said flatly. 

“If I may interject,” Kyoko began. 

Everyone looked at her. 

“Just the other day I was walking to get this food,” she said, straightening her posture and gesturing towards the spread in front of the guests. “and I saw the bird perched atop a grave.”

Macca took a hesitant bite into his forkful of beans. 

“It approached me and tried to drag me towards the graveyard.” she laughed. “I ran, of course, but when I turned around, it was still there… it called out to me, actually.” Directing her gaze around the table, she decided to skip to the end of the tale. “It perched itself back upon the headstone, and when I read it, it was my own grave.” 

Macca drew his head back.

“Although,” Kyoko rushed to correct herself. “as my mother later explained to me, that grave was erected by the townspeople.” She pursed her lips before adding, “Back when they thought I was dead.” 

“Oh.” The siren mumbled. “Oh, alright.”

Kyoko reached for the bowl of raisins. “But it spoke to me. It said,” she cleared her throat, and then, in a parodic impression of the creature, continued, “the dead girl is alive!”

Macca hummed. “Well, that’s not very good.” 

George shook his head. “Certainly not.” 

The company fell silent, each person poking haphazardly around their food.

Yoko sipped her tea.

Dhani stared at his share of raisins.

Ringo picked at his fish cake.

Sean buttered a roll very,  _ very  _ slowly. 

And then Macca spoke again. “Is that everything?”

“Everything magical?” Julian asked. 

The siren nodded.

The company turned to each other.

Yoko chewed on her parsnips. “If I’m not mistaken…” 

“Sounds like it, yes.” Sean confirmed.

Julian’s face betrayed confusion. “Are you sure? I thought there was more…”

George tossed a hand in the air. “I can’t think of anything else.” 

“Then I suppose we should move on.” Macca sighed. 

At this, Sean’s eyebrows raised. He perked up in his chair, and holding out a pointed finger, said, “Wait!” 

The company turned to him.

His face flushed. “Mother. You said you saw strawberries in your dream?” 

Yoko puckered her lips. “I did.” 

Her son looked around the table, his hands held out. “And there are strawberries on my wall?”

No one answered. It was a rhetorical question. 

Macca frowned. “It must be symbolic.” 

“Of what?” George asked.

At this, Sean seized his chance. The timing could have been better, he thought, but he was certain he had gathered a substantial amount of evidence to prove his point. 

With a bit of a smug collectivity, he began, “I think we need to divert our attention from the bird’s actions for a moment, and ask ourselves instead: who is the bird?” Again, he feigned waiting for a response. “Now, you may think to yourself, ‘Well, he’s the sea witch Ethelein, of course!’, but, I pray you, consider what I have to say.”

Macca tilted his head. He wanted to see what the young man had in mind. 

“The bird works through dreams, doesn't he? And some of us have had those dreams, no?” he grinned. “Tell me— what were they about?” 

This time, much to the shock of the guests, he actually listened for a response. 

Julian cleared his throat. “Well, I dreamed I was in this house as a young man.” 

“And I of my soul reading.” Macca said slowly.

Yoko frowned. “And I of Queen Anne’s ball…” She shook her head, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip. “Sean, where are you going with this?” 

Sean chuckled. “It’s really rather simple… see, there’s something—or, actually, some _ one _ all of those dreams have in common.” 

Julian put his hand to his chin. “And who would that be?” 

His brother took a deep breath in. Pushing his glasses high up on his nose, he declared, “I have reason to believe, for it has been shown to me time and time again, in ways both obvious and implied, that the creature we know as the ghost of the sea witch Ethelein, is not, in fact, the mage you all believe him to be,” Here he paused, both for dramatic effect, and to prepare himself for the repercussions of his claim. “but rather, is the spirit of my father.” 

Yoko gasped.

Macca’s face fell, his lips parted just slightly into a gape, revealing the tips of his fangs. “No…” he said, his eyes downcast towards his plate. “No, that doesn’t make any sense…” 

Sean leaned forward, resting his elbows on the wood of the table. “Doesn’t it?” he asked. “Just the other day he came here, and what did he do?” 

Dhani rolled his eyes. If the man asked another rhetorical question he was going to scream.

“First thing he did—” the young man went on. “Come in, grab my father’s glasses. And the strawberries! You say they’re symbolic—” 

Macca shook his head, cutting him off. “No.” he said resolutely. “No. There’s no way.”

“For heaven’s sake! It’s Strawberry Fields!” 

“That bird is a  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ if I’ve ever seen one.” The siren hissed. “And unless John was secretly ordained a witch…” 

This Dhani took note of. “Was he?” he asked quietly.

Kyoko laughed at the very thought. “Of course not.” 

In the background, Sean and Macca continued to exchange arguments. The siren found it rather ironic; the son of his closest friend was so diametrically opposed to him.

“He knew his way around the town!” Sean cried. “He led me to places he should not have otherwise known!”

“ _ It _ ! It’s an  _ it _ !” 

“With all due respect, sir, does that really matter?”

“It matters,” the siren spat. “because you’re trying to be its friend!  _ It  _ is not your friend, Sean! It’s a beast!”

“ _ He  _ is a rather nice one.” 

George coughed. “There is no such thing as a nice beast, I’m afraid. It’s a bit of an oxymoron.” 

“No, no.” Yoko held out her hand. “I’d like to see where he’s going with this.” 

A protest arose at the dinner table. 

“Mother…” Kyoko urged.

Dhani simply set his fork down, paranoid. “Why is it that you’re condoning this?” he asked.

The old woman sipped her tea with a shaking head. “It’s a valid point!” she cried. 

At this, all hell broke loose. 

Oh, calamity. 

Oh, the humanity! 

Sean and Macca continued to bicker, now with Ringo and George chiming in, although Sean was, in a sense, being backed into a corner. His interpretation of the events preceding that evening was certainly not a popular one, and, because of it, he found himself the victim of the rest of the company’s scrutiny.

All except for his mother, anyway. She sat at the head of the table, and, unwilling to see her son persecuted, attempted to defend him, coming off as admittedly centrist on the issue. 

As such, Kyoko tried her hardest to politely tell her mother her attempts were in vain. But of course, her words fell on deaf ears.

This drew heavy disapproval from Dhani, who was beginning to grow more and more convinced that there was some sort of conspiracy against him and his father.

And Julian. Poor Julian couldn’t follow any stream of the noise around him. Occasionally, he might have picked out a word or two, but it was always overshadowed by shouting at the other end of the table. 

Honestly, he was more preoccupied with the fact they were shouting. Their words, to him, were an afterthought, seeing as how they were indecipherable.

He felt his heartbeat race at the noise, a precursor to things yet to come. And, looking around him, the potential of things going very,  _ very  _ south was unacceptably high. 

Magic.

His dead father.

Yoko in general. 

The conditions were ripe for something horrible to happen. Something unproportional to the actual situation.

And so, he thought he was doing the right thing by shouting at everyone to stop. He raised his voice as loudly as he could, and, in an attempt to garner the other’s attention, gesticulated wildly with his arms as he yelled, “Stop! Please, everybody just stop!” 

Adding to the calamity, the man heard the sharp, ringing sound of a tin bowl crashing to the ground behind him, accompanied by the spilling of raisins in every direction. 

It wasn’t the attention he wanted, exactly. 

But it  _ did  _ send a hush over the table. 

Julian’s face flushed, his cheeks growing red with embarrassment as he muttered a slew of apologies to the company. 

Quietly, he excused himself from the table, and sat on his knees to scoop the tiny fruits back into the bowl, which he then promptly set back upon the table. 

It was not the pinnacle of elegance, Dhani thought, but, then again, he was not among very elegant company.

Macca cleared his throat, and in a whisper, said, “Let us move forward.”

His eyes met Julian’s as the man sat back down.

“Do you have the prophecy with you?” he asked. 

Julian nodded, his face still cast with a rosy sheen, and held up the weathered seventh journal of his father. 

“Very good.” the siren sighed. “It’s  _ that _ that we’re here to discuss.” 

And the company seemed to agree with him, their murmurs of approval scattering over the wood and dishes like rats in the street. 

“Then let’s hear it.” George said, reaching for his teacup. 

Again, the company agreed, and as Julian flipped through the pages, Ringo pulled his fish cake away from his mouth. His tentacles darkening in color, he held out his free hand.

“Wait one minute!” he said, drawing the others’ attention. Under their gaze, his mouth suddenly felt dry. He swallowed before saying cautiously, “If we are to read this, then there will be no more going backwards.”

Yoko furrowed her brow.

Seeing some were confused, the octopus-man continued. “We do not know what will come from this…” He turned his head all around, meeting the eyes of every person individually. “It could be that we will bring ourselves to doom by reading this— like Julian said the other day!” he sighed. “I just want to be sure that we are all willing to take that risk.” 

Macca bit his lip. “Of course…” he said, moving into a slow nod. “Of course. You make a very good point.”

“We do not  _ have _ to bring ourselves doom.” Yoko began. “If we all keep our wits about us, then we should have no issue.” 

George fell into a brief coughing spell, worrying Dhani, and wheezed into his handkerchief as he said, “Then let us all pledge to do so.” Then, finally released from his fit, he cleared his throat. “If you would all repeat after me?” 

Kyoko blinked, feeling uneasy as she realized what she had gotten herself into. 

The old man sat up straight in his chair and began, “I, Sir George Harrison,” 

A short silence occurred, a sort of hesitance brought on by the fear of the unknown. 

And then Julian stood up.

“I, Julian Charles Lennon,” he said.

Macca turned to him. “I, Tabanni Macca e’Na’atsji,” 

“I, Ringo Asmalte,”

A brief pause. 

“I, Sean Ono Lennon,”

Yoko took a deep breath in. “I, Yoko Ono Lennon,” 

All eyes turned to the end of the table. Two were left.

“I, Kyoko Beckett,” 

The young man sighed. “I, Sir Dhani Harrison,” 

George nodded. “Do swear on this eve,”

“the ninth of December,”

“Seventeen-hundred forty in the year of our Lord,” 

“that following the reading of this prophecy,” 

“I shall keep all my wits about me,” 

“protecting the interests, safety, and stability of this company,” 

“no matter what is to come.” 

“Through whatever powers may be,” George concluded, “let it be true.” 

Kyoko blessed herself with the sign of the cross, her eyes cast towards heaven. 

Macca simply set his hands on the table and turned to Julian. 

With a dead-set stare, he instructed, “Now, if you would. Read it part by part. We can attempt to figure out one section, and then move on to the next.”

The man nodded. “Aye.” 


	25. Moving Forward, Moving Backward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the prophecy of Ethelein e’Riddidiya is discussed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gentle reminder that Rette is Rory because you deserve to be treated with kindness

Clearing his throat, holding the journal up to his face, Julian began, “‘The stars shine brightly, yet can not live forever. They must burn out, their light becoming faded in a brilliant and sudden flash. In the same way shall we fall.’”

Kyoko brought a forkful of fish to her lips, her mind absorbing the information like a sponge does water. Slowly and calculated. 

Sean leaned back in his chair.

Dhani sat straight up, completely motionless in his.

Julian reread the words in front of him.

And George coughed. Rather insignificant by itself, but by the time he had finished coughing, Kyoko had started speaking.

“Perhaps,” she began after swallowing the fish cake. “the stars are a metaphor. A stand-in of sorts.” Here she thought for a moment. “But for what?” 

Dhani shook his head, defeated. Only one section into the reading, and he had already given up. “Oh, I’ll tell you what they are!” he cried. “I’ll tell you what the whole damned thing means! It means we are all going to meet our demise! That awful bird—”

“Now, now…” his father scolded. “this is no time for pessimism.” 

Ringo frowned. Quietly, to himself, really, he muttered, “He could be onto something, you know.” 

George turned to look at him, greatly concerned that he was the last optimist among the company.

The octopus-man flushed at his gaze. “You know, about the fading stars?” 

Sean snapped his fingers, his eyes lighting up. All his years of reading ominously in the forest had actually contributed to something! “Maybe it’s a stand-in for death!” he exclaimed, assuming the phrase’s symbolism.

This didn’t comfort Dhani in the slightest. All this talk of death and dying… it was not a subject he wished to think about. Especially not with a group made up, at least in part, by witches and warlocks.

“So,” he began, frantic. “we  _ are  _ going to die?” 

His father tried his best to console him, assuring him that no one would die because of the bird. 

But Sean just shrugged. “I mean, eventually, yes.” 

“But could it be the fault of the bird?” Julian interrupted. “Is he out to get us?” 

Yoko mulled over this idea. It  _ had  _ proclaimed Kyoko dead. But in the same respect, it had gone back on its proclamation just the other day. 

Hypocrisy, she thought. Oh, how it hurt her head!

She could have chosen to dwell on it, but she had more pressing matters on her mind, more simple ones, and so, slowly, she asked, “Who is the  _ we _ he mentions, anyway?” 

Macca pursed his lips. “Well, it truly could be anyone… seafolk, perhaps. Humans.” He crossed his arms. “It could very well be all of us. But it’s unclear.”

Still hung up on the idea of the bird plotting revenge against the company, Julian thought back to an earlier idea he had had. Cautiously, for he knew it might upset them, he posed the question. 

“Is it at all possible,” he asked, his voice betraying anxiety, “that Ethelein was referring to John’s death?”

Yoko’s face fell. 

He turned his gaze to his fork. “He did speak of stars suddenly fading… perhaps he meant his sudden— well,” he hesitated, and in a single breath, released, “his sudden death.”

Sean gave him a stern look, a warning of sorts. 

And that’s when he knew he was done for. 

“Are you implying that Ethelein is responsible?” Yoko asked, feverish. 

Julian’s face flushed, his blood freezing in his veins. He was not one to argue. “Well, not  _ implying,  _ per se…” he stammered.

Macca picked up on the man’s distress, and so, bearing a great deal of love and compassion for the man, he gently suggested that they move on.

This was a move the company seemed more or less pleased with. 

“‘The nowhere man is but prey to fools.’” Julian began. ‘“He will be hunted and rivaled. Though several times he may escape the claws of predators, when the world is consumed in cold, when the course of life runs smoothly like pearls, he will be caught and laid among strawberries and roses.’”

Sean raised his arms to the sky with open palms. “It’s strawberries and roses again!” he said. “Checkmate, all you nonbelievers!” 

Macca, beginning to grow tired of the young man’s sheer unrelenting perseverance in his own ideas, cursed the moon and stars before warning, “Don’t be so hasty. You’re skipping straight to the end, choosing only the details that you like, and ignoring the larger section.”

Sean took a deep breath, and so the siren continued, “I suggest we begin with this— who exactly is the nowhere man?”

Ringo looked up from his food. “Well, it’s one of John’s songs, isn’t it?” 

George laughed, impressed the octopus-man remembered such a detail. “You’re right about that…” he muttered.

“Was he supposed to fill in for anyone real?” Dhani asked. “Was he a caricature?” 

The three bards—or, former bards, anyway—shook their heads.

“Not that I’m aware of…” Macca said.

George backed him up. “No, I don’t think so…” 

Yoko poked at her fish, a bit bored. “So who is he?”

“And more importantly,” Kyoko said. “who is hunting him?” 

“Is no one paying attention to ‘he will be caught and laid among the strawberries and roses’?!” Sean cried, completely out of his right mind. 

“Oh, go off about it then!” Macca huffed, again astounded and horrified by the young man’s perseverance. “Let’s hear your rant!” 

Sean laughed. “Well, if you’re just going to invite me like that…”

Yoko shook her head disapprovingly. 

In front of her, her son went on.

“The strawberries and roses are in my house,” he said. “therefore, the only logical conclusion is that the nowhere man, whoever he is, is going to be, and I quote, ‘caught and laid’ by said predators, most likely in the winter, inside of my house.” He took a deep breath in here, pausing so that he did not asphyxiate. “So is the nowhere man me?”

Dhani squinted, only partly following his logic.

“Perhaps.” he continued. “Is the nowhere man Julian? Perhaps.” And with a sigh, he ended his rant with, “Is someone going to die in my house? Quite likely.”

“Why are you so sure someone will die?” George asked, skeptical. “It seems a rather extreme conclusion…”

The young man shrugged. “Well, the nowhere man is going to be caught by predators, isn’t he?”

At this Yoko became deeply unsettled. If it were up to her, then no one would die. But since it wasn’t, she still held out hope that it wouldn’t yet be her son. “So you believe someone is going to kill you?” she asked, manic. 

Internally, Sean felt himself already dying. Being killed by his own words, so to speak. He should have known better than to imply to his mother that he would be murdered. “No…” he answered. “I only suspect it.” 

His mother was already three steps ahead of him, and so disregarded his answer completely. “Who have you wronged?” she continued, her eyes wild. 

“Who haven’t I wronged?” 

Kyoko sat unnerved by the young man’s ideas, and picked away quietly at her fish cake until she came to a conclusion of her own. 

“It’s possible,” she began, turning to him. “that the predators mentioned are not physical animals or people, but rather, constructs of the mind.” 

Sean leaned back in his chair, intrigued by the idea. “Do go on.” 

The woman nodded. “Certainly.” Tucking a loose strand of hair back into her cap, she elaborated, “Perhaps the real predators are the effects of these events on our minds.”

Sean puckered his lips.

“If you ask me, the bird’s aim is to drive us mad. With my grave, and the nightmares and what not. Maybe if we give up trying to fight it, and give up on this prophecy, it wins.” she laughed half-heartedly. “Maybe it knows we can’t win.”

“But, then, who is the nowhere man?” Macca asked.

Kyoko sighed. “For that I have no good answer.”

Sean took a sip of his wine, relishing in the sensation of the cool glass pressing against his lips. “It’s a good theory,” he said. “but it still doesn’t explain the strawberries and roses.”

Julian shook his head at this. As clever as his brother was, he could be awfully stubborn. And it seemed that that evening, his stubborn side had taken full control of the reigns. The only way to bring him down a peg was to drag him down from his own level.

Such were Julian’s intentions when he said, “If the nowhere man is me, as you would have me believe, then I am to die in your house, correct?” 

Sean frowned. “Nothing is for certain. but…” he began. 

“But that, generally speaking, is your idea?” 

“It is.” 

Julian leaned forward in his chair, making direct eye contact with the young man. “Then it leaves out one fact—” he laughed. “I nearly  _ did  _ die in your house.”

At this, Sean’s face changed. His eyes ventured down to his brother’s lips, his features softening as he processed the counterclaim. 

“So then,” Julian continued. “was I supposed to die, but lived instead?” 

George nodded slowly, beginning to understand the man’s viewpoint. “And if so, why?” he added. 

Sean’s face, like a chameleon, suddenly changed again, and, without any warning or prerequisite, he began to laugh.

But there was an edge to it, Julian noticed. He almost sounded upset, angry that his point was being disproved.

And hearing that edge, the older man lost his assurance. He was not one to contradict others, you see, so that instance was a rather unusual moment for him. 

Moreover, that tone—that aforementioned edge with which he laughed… There was something so dreadfully familiar about it. 

God, he thought. The man didn’t just look like John, he somehow inherited his mannerisms as well.

Before Sean got the chance to refute his brother, however, Macca interrupted, his chin being held up on the table by the palm of his hand. 

“You all forget,” he began. “that a nowhere man is, by definition, no one.”

George furrowed his brow. “That’s not what he was in the song, was he?” 

Kyoko’s gaze moved over to the journal. Meeting Julian’s eyes, she asked, “Is it written in there?” 

Her stepbrother frowned, leaning in to hear her. “I beg your pardon?” 

“Is the song in the journal?” 

“Oh.” He looked down at the book in his hands. And as he processed the question, his face lifted. “It… it may be!” he exclaimed. “Here, I’ll look…”

He got to work, while in the background, Macca and the others continued discussing what exactly a ‘nowhere man’ was. 

George’s eyes were fixed on the ceiling, his head bobbing back and forth as he muttered, “ _ He is a true nowhere man, residing in his nowhere land... _ ”

“See,” Yoko pointed out. “he had a home.” 

“A home that didn’t exist.” Dhani deadpanned. 

“ _ Creating all his nowhere plans for ne’er a soul… _ ”

Sean was just completely lost. “Because it was nowhere?”

“Aye,” his mother and the young Sir Harrison responded. 

Macca scooped a forkful of raisins in his mouth. “Well, you mustn’t forget that the idea of a ‘nowhere man’ is based on the Oceanic concept of the  _ Yaer Imi _ .”

Ringo turned to him, confused. “It is?”

“Well, John and I did speak of it some. I can only assume he took inspiration.” 

“Why must you take credit for his work?” Yoko asked. 

George’s eyes bulged. Things were not going well. 

But to his, along with everyone else’s, relief, Macca did not answer her, and instead continued, “The  _ Yaer Imi  _ is a sort of… attendant of the universe.” 

“And beyond!” Ringo chimed in. 

“He lives apart from the five seas of reality in what is, to be frank, essentially nowhere.” 

“Is he a man?” George asked, curious. “A merman, that is?”

Macca squinted and pursed his lips, unsure how to to even begin answering that. 

_ ALL ONE REQUIRETH IS LOVE _

_ There is nothing one can do that is not pos _

“Well…” he began. “I don’t think so.”

_ FELLOW, THOU ART A WEALTHY MAN _

__ _ How doth it feel to be one of the beautiful  _

“It’s quite difficult to tell, you know.” 

_ 9th of May, 1707 _

_ Ethelein has stopped coming so oft onto th _

The siren shook his head. “But we are diverging from the original point. Perhaps we should move ahead. Leave this section for another time…” 

He turned to face Julian.

_ A DAY IN THE LIFE _

_ I read the news today, oh dear _

“Julian, if you would.”

Julian did not hear the siren.

_ 31st of December, 1706 _

_ So another year ends, and at dusk shall a  _

“Julian?” 

He turned his attention to the siren, his gaze dragging upward to meet his. 

It was then he noticed everyone staring at him.

Flushing, he said, “I beg your pardon?”

Macca sighed, somehow ever-patient. “We have decided to move ahead in the prophecy.” He pointed a clawed finger at the journal. “Now if you would…?”

“Oh, yes! My apologies!” 

The man began rapidly turning pages, worrying Kyoko, who warned him to take care with the old thing. 

After all, it was not in the best condition. Years of being kept at sea, and then shoved in a dark drawer had not done wonders for its complexion. 

It smelled old, its edges waved from ocean water, its pages stuffed with salt.

Julian flipped past February and April, skimmed May and June, rushed through July, and then proceeded through August with a bit more caution until he eventually stumbled back across the 27th.

Clearing his throat, he continued, “‘The woman of black, second of her position, will be there. She will be forever stained by that moment, her heart like a lake of glass, haunted by rye and raven.’”

Immediately upon the saying of that last word,  _ raven _ , most, if not all eyes in the room found themselves focused on Yoko. 

At first, the old woman was confused. 

And then, like Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, she became aware of her clothing.

A jet-black shirt. 

A matching vest.

Achromatic britches. 

White stockings.

And then a pair of high, shiny black shoes.

“Oh,” she said. “That would make sense, wouldn’t it?” 

Kyoko nodded. “That and the raven.”

“Right, of course,” Macca began. “but then, if you are the woman of black, what does the rest mean?”

Julian reread the words of the prophecy, and then turned to his stepmother. “It says you are second of your position?” 

“What position?” she asked.

The man shrugged. 

“I suppose that’s up to us to figure out.” Dhani said. 

Macca let out a pitiful laugh. “Well, Ethelein certainly didn’t make this very easy for us.” 

“Wish he did…” Ringo muttered.

Hearing his friend say this, George clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. Holding out and wagging his finger, he replied, “Ah, but there’s no use in wishing, is there?” 

Sean blinked. “What’s so wrong with wishing?” 

“Nothing in the past can be changed.” 

“But it’s rather enjoyable.”

George sighed. “Let us not lose our focus.” 

He turned back to Yoko. 

“Second of your position, are you?” 

She shook her head as she chewed on a piece of parsnip. “My position as what?” 

“Well,” Julian began. “what is your current position?” 

Yoko thought for a minute before settling on, “The British Ambassador to Nutopia.” 

Her stepson pursed his lips. Squinting, as he was rather confused, he spoke slowly. “You are an ambassador?” 

“Aye,” she smiled. “I am.”

George was equally as shocked. “Who made you an ambassador?” he asked with a cough. 

As Dhani turned to ensure the wellbeing of the old man, Sean shook his head. 

Around him, chaos. 

“I’ve never heard of such a place…” Julian muttered. 

“Mother,” Kyoko said, her hand grazing her bosom. “when did that happen?” 

Sean sipped his wine, anxious. Smacking his lips, he explained, “It is not a real country.”

Yoko bobbed her head. “Perhaps not in a traditional sense, no.”

Now Julian was even more confused. 

“But it is a country nonetheless.” 

“And you are the ambassador?” Ringo asked. 

She nodded. 

“Are you the second?” Macca piped up.

At this, Yoko winced. It was a bit difficult to answer, she thought. “Well, I am one of the original two.”

“What in God’s name is going on?!” Julian thought aloud. 

Sean leaned over to him, fork in hand. “Did Father ever tell you of Nutopia?”

Julian shook his head. To his left, Macca and Yoko continued. 

“But are you the second?” the siren repeated.

Yoko shrugged. “I may be.”   
He shut his eyes, tight, bringing a hand up to his temple. “Could you please just give me a straight answer?”   
“I did.”

Sean poked at his raisins. “In short, as he and my mother were in court being tried for witchcraft, the two of them attempted to claim that they could not be witches, seeing as how they were ambassadors of the country of Nutopia-- which, I cannot stress enough, is not a physical country able to be mapped.”

Julian shook his head, a frown across his face. “Amazing…” he whispered sarcastically. “I understand not a word of what you’ve just said.” 

Dhani, however, took special note of that information. 

“Yoko,” Macca said, now at his wits end. “are you the second of your position as ambassador or not?” 

The woman frowned. “I am not sure. I may be, or it could have been John.”

She was very lucky that Macca had already eaten, for he was about ready to strangle the woman for her responses. 

Behind them, the rest of the company begged for her to be more clear, in what was surely a much more rational, peacekeeping way.

“It isn’t a country.” Sean reiterated. “It’s much more similar to an art project, really.”

Kyoko, who had overheard both conversations, sighed, utterly defeated in every sense and meaning of the word. “Of course!” she cried. “Of course it is!”

With an almost laughable tone, she turned to Macca. “Apparently it’s an art project,” she said. “I pray you didn’t hold high hopes.” 

At this, a hush went over the table.

The siren blinked. “Pardon?”

“It is not a real country, nor is she an ambassador. It is an art piece.” 

“Perhaps it isn’t real,” Yoko protested. “but I am still the ambassador.” 

Macca was in pure disbelief. “You are not truly the ambassador.” he stated.

“I disagree.” 

Frustrated with the woman, he raised his voice. “You are the ambassador of a  _ fictional  _ country.”

Yoko cocked an eyebrow. “Well, it isn’t fictional. It exists, just not as—”

“You are the  _ ambassador  _ of a bloody art project!” the siren spat. “And you just wasted all of our time letting us know!” 

The old woman tilted her head back and forth, her eyes shut in annoyance.

“We- we could have been through half the prophecy by now!” he went on. “But instead, we’ve just spent our time stuck in a stream that leads to nowhere!” 

“There’s no need to yell!” 

Sean struck his fork with measured caution against his glass. “Moving forward!” he shouted as the sound resonated. 

Julian took a deep breath in. Before all the noise had even settled down, he continued, “‘The sunflower shall live on, bearing one heir with the Lady Madras. He has fought valiantly for that he believed, rivaling the unjust and misguided. And then shall one day disappear in a gray haze.’”

Ringo pointed his finger in the air. “Already got that one!” he said, still proud of himself for figuring it out. 

“Onto the next?” Julian asked.

Dhani, sipping on his wine, held up a hand. Swallowing it, he called out, “Hold on a minute! Hold, please!”

The company turned to him. 

“I’d like to decipher that last bit,” he explained. “about the disappearance.” 

George shook his head as he brought his fork to his mouth. 

“Alright,” Macca sighed. “what do you think it means, Dhani?”

At this the young man drew back. “What do I think?” 

The siren hesitated. “Well, yes. That was the question.”

He thought for a moment. 

What did he think?

He thought it meant something bad. 

“I think it means my father is going to die.” he announced

George raised his eyebrows. “There it is…” he muttered. 

“I do!” Dhani protested. “Is that so wrong?”

His father sighed, “It’s not that it’s wrong. No thought is inherently  _ wrong _ . In fact, it’s right! You’re right! I  _ am  _ going to die!”

“Well,” Dhani faltered. “I suppose so, yes!”

With a well-timed coughing fit to accompany him, the man continued, “I do not have much longer left on this Earth, and I accept that.”

Dhani’s face flushed. “Father,” he urged, his voice betraying deep fear and concern. “do not speak so!”

“What I speak is the truth.”

“You should not jynx yourself so!” 

“I only speak the truth, my boy. And it is about time you accept it, lest you—”

Ringo cleared his throat, his tentacles changing color to a fierce scarlet. “Moving  _ forward _ !” he cried. 

As Julian scanned the pages of the journal, the octopus-man reminded, “We have an oath, remember? We swore an oath not to fight over this!” 

“That is not what we swore!” George said, growing frustrated.

Across from him at the table, Julian cleared his throat. Rather loudly, he continued, “‘Tragedy shall fall upon those of blue; one left to the pages of history, the other to the pitfalls of loneliness. Left only with a memory etched in silver.’”

Yoko nodded as the words were being spoken. And, following suit with the conclusions drawn about her, her gaze immediately turned to the siren sitting to her right. 

“It must be Macca,” she remarked, catching sight of his slippery teal scales. 

The siren in question furrowed his brow. “It very well could be,” he said. “but he mentioned two of them.” 

As the others thought on this, Ringo fiddled with his necklace, watching as the cool metal pendant turned in his fingers. It was a good way for him to regain his composure.

Etched in silver, he thought.

A memory etched in silver. 

His fingers stopped moving, his eyes squinting to see the pendant. It was simple; a prime example of western smithery. A long, dull silver disk, inscribed on either side with a design chosen by the buyer. 

On the first side, the one that faced away from the wearer, a traditional  _ Agkiy  _ design— an eight-pointed star. 

And on the side pressed against Ringo’s chest, a single Naiadic character. 

A name meaning colorful. 

To be full of life and warmth.

_ Rette. _

A chill ran down his whole body, his lower half shifting to a pale-dandelion sort of color.

He and Macca both realized it at the same time.

The siren’s face fell, his hand rising to his mouth. 

“It’s—”

“It must be you!” Macca cried.

Ringo shrugged, his mind at a loss for words. “I suppose it must be.” 

Across the table, Kyoko frowned. “Why is that?” she asked. 

The octopus-man turned to her. “It’s my name.” he sighed, pointing to his eyes. “Ringo— it means blue.” 

Julian snapped his fingers, a look of realization crossing his face. “From the Naiadic  _ Inogo’o _ !”

Macca smiled, still proud to have taught the man his tongue. “Exactly.” And after pausing to collect some more parsnips, which, although hot food was a rather bold concept to him, he found to be quite tasty, he added, “And the bit about the memory in silver! It has to be about his...er… his shiny.”

Sean smiled at the siren’s misunderstanding of English vocabulary.

But the siren did not smile back. In fact, he grimaced. For, though the satisfaction of analysis was not to be understated, he had not followed his analysis to its conclusion. 

“If… if one of them is you,” he said slowly, his sorrowful expression garnering the others’ attention. “‘them’ referring to those of blue, and the other one is me…”

If there was any remaining joy at the table, it disappeared here, as a full and collective understanding made itself present to the company. 

“Then we are in deep, deep water, so to speak.”

Ringo nodded. “A tragedy shall fall upon us…”

“You’re about to be very lonely, too…” Sean said quietly. 

“Only one of you.” George reminded. “We mustn’t stray, in our interpretations, too far from the original text.” 

A brief pause.

“Sir Harrison,” Kyoko began. “you forget that the original text is nonsensical.” 

She laughed to herself. “It is! It makes no sense whatsoever!”

“You cannot apply sensical logic to a nonsensical problem…” Sean added, being reminded of his earlier conversation with the old man’s son. 

Another pause. The room itself seemed to depress, as though the ceiling swelled and the floor sank. 

The situation—in this case, the analysis of the prophecy, and whether or not the events it described were to the company’s benefit, seemed beyond desolate. 

And although no one wished to confirm the paranoia of a Madras madman, it was possible that Dhani’s fears could come to fruition. 

The nowhere man would be hunted.

The woman of black would be haunted.

The sunflower would disappear.

And tragedy would fall upon those of blue.

Needless to say, the odds weren’t stacked in their favor. 

Yoko sighed. “They’re correct…” she said, shaking her head as she sipped the last of her tea. 

Macca followed suit. “Correct, indeed.” 

And upon seeing that some of his fellow company members, notably George, Dhani, Ringo, and Julian, appeared visibly confused and distraught by the idea, he elaborated, “I’m afraid all we can do is make our own interpretations about Ethelein’s work.” Here he let out a pitiful laugh, shaking his head back and forth as dread seeped into his every bone. “We can’t expect him to do it for us.”

An awful, unsettling silence filled the air of the dining room. 

The siren couldn’t be more right. 

And for this, the bird, perched on the window outside, obscured by the curtains indoors, couldn’t be more thankful.

For, if it was going to get what it wanted, or, perhaps more accurately, understand what it  _ was  _ that it wanted, then it first needed the company to do its dirty work. 

And they were not the best at it.

But they would improve. 

It would make sure of that.

At 8:54 in the evening, the bird flew away.

By 9:30, Ringo and Macca had returned to the harbor.

By 10:00, Julian and Sean had returned to the latter’s home.

But at exactly 4:03 the next morning, both of the brothers found themselves in the same perfect, parallel, superhumanly strange situation.


	26. “Go.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Julian and Sean experience some rather odd things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest chapter so far, but trust me when I say it’s one of the most important plot-wise. Don’t be afraid— I’ll give you a cookie at the end. 
> 
> Also, happy Pride Month to all my LGBTQ+ readers! Keir Moonrock and Co. supports the community year round. Get on my level, Wendy’s.

Surely you can understand the deceptive feeling that, while you are in your bed, nearly asleep, you feel you are falling. In an instant, you feel as though your body is being tossed from a cliff, and your eyes snap awake from their slumber, your heart pounding in your chest, louder and with greater speed than a fleet of a thousand horses. I’ve absolutely no doubt you have experienced this yourself, presuming you are of reasonable sentience. 

So, then, you must feel that you should have no problem understanding how this sensation felt to Julian and Sean in the cold morning hours.

But that, I’m afraid, is where our opinions differ. 

Because, contrary to every law of reason and rationality, the men experienced the aforementioned sensation in reverse.

That is to say, they both seemed to fall as they were fully asleep, and awoke directly afterward with a start. 

But it was not a failing of the mind that awoke them, nor was it a frightening dream that sent them spiraling from their slumber into a state of alarming wakefulness.

No, no. 

The dream had only just begun. 

Julian gasped, and immediately upon doing so, was met with the painfully refreshing sensation of the winter wind on his teeth. 

His first instinct was that he was back on the riverbank, and that the bird had somehow dragged him there, but, for some reason, had abstained from drowning him.

Lucky him, he thought.

But as he took in the sights around him, he found he wasn’t exactly lucky. That’s not to say he was  _ unlucky _ , of course.

But lucky wasn’t the right word.

There was no benefit to his being in the situation, but, as far as he could tell, there were no adverse effects either, apart from the sinking feeling in his every being that he was somewhere he shouldn't have been.

See, he was in Liverpool, which, under any other circumstances, would be completely fine. 

Liverpool was his home, first and foremost. It was where his mother and house were, the place he had been born, and the place of his work.

It was a fine town, he thought, if the more unsavory parts (notably the women of ill-repute strolling the docks) could be avoided.

It was a booming town, truly the center of the British navy, and, through colonial expansion, a gateway to the entire rest of the world. 

It linked the meager island to corners of the globe previously undiscovered— distant lands like India, the Americas, Africa, and the West Indies. Places Julian had, for the most part, only ever heard stories of.

So, needless to say, its population was quite sizeable, and, especially once those women of ill-repute had been accounted for, it was growing.

Which made it all the stranger that the entirety of the town had, put simply, vanished.

The first thing Sean did upon opening his eyes was turn on his side and shut them again. The sun was not yet peeking through his curtains, illuminating the far corner of his bedchamber like it usually did, and so the young man could be absolutely certain that it was not yet morning.

But, as he quickly came to realize, despite the lack of light, he was no longer tired. 

In fact, he had no desire for sleep at all.    
He felt normal. The way he would in the afternoon. He was, without a doubt, fully awake, more or less nourished, and felt no sense of restfulness. 

It was such a strange sensation that it made him wonder just what time it was. 

On more than one occasion, he had awoken an hour before he usually would, thus creating a very similar situation in which he was prematurely rested. 

But if the view outside of his window was any indicator, then it was still relatively far from morning. The moon was high in the sky, its lilac light scattering through the clouds in an almost ethereal sense. 

It was like something straight out of a painting, Sean thought. 

Wouldn’t that be lovely? 

To live in a painting? 

He dreamed about the idea as he drew the curtains open, sending moonlight cascading over the wooden floor and lighting up the room. 

In the newfound light, he was able to see the clock, sitting stoic on his desk, as it always did. Next to it, an inkpot with the plume still inside of it, a stack of folded letters Julian had sent him in the past year, and his spectacles.

He moved towards the table, and, after retrieving his spectacles for the obvious purpose of actually reading the clock, he directed his attention to its brass face.

And what he saw was quite unsettling. Disturbing, even.

For, while the hands should have been planted at precisely one spot, moving with every passing minute, and chiming with every hour, instead they spun, moving like carriage wheels. Around and around and around... 

It was a hypnotizing sight. 

Julian called out to no one.

Naturally, this was to no avail, because when no one is around to hear a man call out, no one can respond. 

So, with no one to hear him, he figured he might as well look for someone. Perhaps someone was around, and they were just deaf.

So onward he went, passing empty homes, shops, churches, and streets on his eerie walk to nowhere.

He wasn’t sure why the idea scared him as much as it did. He knew for a fact he was dreaming, as he had been asleep in New York mere minutes before. And since he was dreaming, then he was certain to wake up at some point. 

It wasn’t such an unpleasant idea by itself, he thought, but it had crossed over from being purely theoretical to happening before his very eyes. And it was much more frightening once it left the realm of hypotheticals.

The other thing that was strange was that he was fully aware he was dreaming— not something that happened very often. 

The concept of the dream seemed plausible, at least as far as dreams go. He expected he would walk around an empty Liverpool, maybe something would chase him, or he would hear someone... that seemed about right.

But, although he was sure beyond the shadow of a doubt that he was asleep in the guest room of Sean’s house in the woods, he felt as though he really was walking through the city in the cold, searching for something, or rather,  _ someone  _ he would never find.

It was a dissonance very hard to describe, but not one he had never felt before, because he most certainly had! Specifically, he had felt the exact same way that dreadful night he had been tossed into the river. When he had somehow materialized in his father’s home as a young man, and had argued with his corpse. Yes, that feeling, he realized, was completely akin to the one he felt strolling through the silent streets.

But if that was so, and similar events would unfold in the abandoned city, then he loathed what possibilities could lie ahead of him. 

Either the clock was broken, Sean rationalized, time had ceased to exist, or he had gone mad. 

The second suggestion was far too ludicrous for him to believe, so it was very quickly dispelled from his mind. 

The third, while more plausible, was also unlikely, and so, he decided to look to the first.

The clock was simply broken, he decided. He would have to bring it to the clockmaker, who, on the chance Sean would even be allowed to step foot in his shop, lest he curse the establishment with his demonic ways, would repair it. 

Although, there was one more possibility to consider.

It may have been that he was in one of the dreams Macca had gone to such lengths to warn him about. The ones in which a memory would be relived and a single detail would be changed.

That single detail, he figured, could very likely be the spinning hands of the clock.

But while struggling to remember the siren’s great deal of warnings and precautions, stories and myths, it suddenly occurred to Sean that Macca had specifically instructed, at every possible occasion,  _ not  _ to tamper with that single detail. 

They were not to look at it, mention it, hear it, touch it, taste it, or interact with it in any way.

And Sean had forgotten that. 

He scrambled away from the desk, turning his attention away from the clock and back onto the moon.

As had been proven time and time again, if the out-of-place detail was interacted with, then the person dreaming would have something terrible happen to them—something Sean was not eager to experience. 

He could be legitimately hurt, or killed, even! 

The young man braced himself for whatever was to come, be it torture, blindness, disease, or bloodshed.

But nothing came. 

Trying his best to keep his mind from the numerous possibilities of horrible things happening to him in the dream world, Julian kept his eyes fixed on the scenery around him. 

There wasn’t a whole lot to behold, of course. He had meandered into a less-than-reputable part of town, known for its poorly-built houses, drunken beggars, and copious amounts of swearing Irishmen. 

But with no one around, he figured he was in no danger of being robbed. Not that he had anything of value on him in the first place. 

It wasn’t somewhere he was dying to be, but that’s not to say he had never been there— or that he was much better off. 

See, the life of a longshoreman was not one of great decadence (or, for that matter, respect). But the men of the docks were all, even if unwilling, comrades to one another. Every one of them knew the details of the others’ personal affairs, the statuses of their marriages and children, and, if not that, at least their favorite shanty. 

And while some would use that information in taunts, or perhaps even as blackmail, for the most part, the men and boys only used it to pass the time. It was, after all, a very good way to keep themselves entertained between loads, and it came with the added bonus of developing friendships with one’s coworkers. 

Despite all of that, Julian didn’t hold many people too dear to him. It wasn’t that he despised mankind, of course. He wasn’t  _ that  _ much of a pessimist. 

It was simply a logical move. People, he realized a very long time ago, are not infallible. They do things for the wrong reasons, start wars and conflicts, and brutalize their fellow men to the point of dehumanization and, in some cases, suicide. There were plenty of people who would not hesitate to betray his trust, or otherwise wrong him, so he did not allow himself to become close to many people.

But that did not mean he had no friends.

Sean stood, backed against his bed in the dark for a number of minutes he did not know, seeing as how he could not read the clock. It felt like quite a while, but then again, time always seems to pass slower when one is placed in a dangerous or unpleasant situation. 

Time was a beast, the young man concluded. It was a beast that toyed with the minds of men, taking its sweet time at the most inconvenient hour, and moving like a siren to their prey at the most important. 

And after so much of it, Sean decided he might as well open his eyes. If nothing bad had happened yet, then it was unlikely that anything would.

So, pushing his glasses high up on the bridge of his nose, he turned his gaze very cautiously back to the clock on his desk. 

And, of course, the hands still spun, fixed in orbit like some kind of doomed top.

Sean sighed, unsure what to make of the situation.

Even if the clock wasn’t the cursed sign Macca had warned him about, the dream must have still been the work of the bird. There was no doubt about that.

But there was the fact that it did not follow the usual pattern of  _ sje’inn’a’e _ dreams. It was no memory of Sean’s, as far as he was concerned.

Maybe it was just a normal dream, he thought. One that didn’t involve the threat of bodily harm and spiritual consequences. 

Oh, but why would it be?

He figured he might as well inspect the rest of the house. 

Even in the dark, Julian could pick out Henry Walsh’s home. Much like its owner, it seemed to radiate smothering optimism in the face of desolation. 

Sure, the paint was chipping, and the street outside was littered and filthy, but the molding around the windows had all been cleared of soot and ash, and the flowerbox inside was filled to the brim with poppies. 

It wouldn’t matter to Walsh, he was sure. That man could be smacked upside the head with a wooden board and still be grinning. If he weren’t so charming it would be downright terrifying. 

Julian had actually been inside the man’s house, even if only by his repeated requests. Or, perhaps more accurately, his repeated insistances. The man was very proud of his family, and upon the birth of his youngest daughter, he had asked that Julian take responsibility as his godfather. 

He had immediately turned down the position, citing that he had absolutely no intent of bringing up a child in any fashion, spiritual or not. 

But he had enjoyed quite a nice meal with the family. And although it was unclear whether or not Walsh was his friend, he was certainly friendly.

He gave good counsel and made the most of any situation. A true pillar of the community, at least in Julian’s eyes, and a diamond in the rough among the longshoremen, whose days consisted mostly of swearing and complaining, and whose nights were often accompanied by an unfamiliar woman with crooked teeth and crooked morals. 

So the man decided to take a step inside. 

Sean held the candle high to inspect the walls. 

They were still made of wood, which, although rather mundane, provided some relief. 

And they were not horribly dirty or spattered in blood, both of which were equally likely. 

Below him, the floor still creaked, and bugs of varying sizes still crawled about, the likes of which he could never seem to properly squash. 

It was funny, he thought. For once in his life, he was thankful for the insects. 

Sean sighed, and continued on to the next room.

That was, of course, the guest room. Not the easiest place to infiltrate, but arguably the most important to check on. 

For Julian, as far as he knew, was still asleep inside. And if he was not, and he was experiencing the same strange things as Sean, that being a sudden, unexplained awakening, and feelings of disillusion, paired with the seeming absence of time, then something was  _ very  _ wrong.

Sean would have to be careful opening the door, lest he wake him. The man, he had realized over the past couple of months, was a very light sleeper, providing that he slept at all. And he would not be happy with Sean for disturbing him.

Thankfully, the door to the guest room did not creak.

With all the speed of the sunrise, he turned the doorknob, and then, even slower, opened the door, extending the candle inside just far enough to see everything he needed to.

The walls were clean. 

The sheets were white.

But the bed, while still there, was unoccupied.

Walsh’s house was small, and, more than anything else, very simple. 

Upon entering, the stairs, kitchen, cupboard, and dining table were all visible, kept in as good condition as they could be. 

Upstairs, Julian knew, laid a densely packed collection of beds and cribs, inhabited by Walsh and his wife, their three sons, and their six daughters, all of varying ages and healths. 

And that, apart from some meaningless trinkets, was everything inside. 

Just about, anyway. 

For there was one thing Julian recognized as not having been there before, or, at the very least, was not noticed by him when he had come over for supper that past winter. 

On the table, rough on the edges and ripe with splinters, and in front of all the various colored chairs, in the center of the surface area, standing out against everything else in the cluttered house, was a bowl.

It was large, almost like a punch bowl, and decorated in about the same way, made of silver molded into grandiose designs. It bore imagery of wreaths, vines, and flowers, all natural objects carved into a man-made product, along with varying studs, and patterns enough to dizzy an owl.

And inside sat about a pound of strawberries, plump and poppy-red, with seeds as bright as the sun, and leaves so richly green it looked as though they were horribly ill. 

The tips of Sean’s fingers became cold. It was not exactly a comforting sign that in such trying times, Julian was not in the guest room.

Not allowing himself to assume the worst, for he had to remain reasonable, the young man took a deep breath.

It was most likely that his brother had not been able to fall asleep, and seeing that that was the case, had ventured downstairs into the main room, and was likely lying in his shirt and britches on the sofa, _Leviathan_ or some other title in his hand.

So it was with his usual composure that Sean called, “Julian?”

He was met with no response.

“Julian, are you down here? I fear my clock may be broken…” 

Again, silence.

Sean began to carefully tread down the stairs, his fears growing inside of him with every inch he advanced. 

He was almost afraid to turn his head for fear that he might not see anyone, but quickly dismissed the idea. It was better to know and be disappointed than to not know and drive himself mad with worry. 

Holding the candle out over the railing, he called out one last time for his brother, and sent a prayer up to anyone at all that he would find him asleep on the sofa, a book held in his hand. 

But to his horror, no one was there, and all his worst fears were beginning to come true.

Julian ran into the next house over, designed similar to Walsh’s, with the same compactness and smothering sense of claustrophobia.

And again, in the center of the table, which, this time, was covered in a white cloth, sat the silver punch-bowl filled to the brim with strawberries.

The man shook his head and laughed, beginning to feel as though he was losing all semblance of sanity.

To the next house he went, the last installment in the building Walsh lived in.

Again, the bowl of strawberries.

Panicking, and no longer bothered by the cold, Julian began sprinting through the streets, like a mad dog was on his heels, towards his own house.

It wasn’t very far, thank God. He could make it in about ten minutes at the rate he was moving, and the lack of horses and pedestrians certainly helped.

Around him, the world spun by.

A carriage devoid of any passengers.

A church whose bells rang silent.

A courthouse convicting no one.

All were reduced to colors and shapes in the man’s heightened state; so much so that he almost ran past his own house.

Stepping backwards, Julian threw open the door, which promptly dented his wall.

He wondered if the dent would appear in reality. It was an interesting paradox, he figured, but there was no time to think about it.

Because illuminated by the moonlight flooding through his windows, the man saw the same punch bowl, and the same bright red berries. 

He shifted his weight, unsure of what else he could do.

And then, behind him, as if from the doorway, he heard a quiet chirp. 

  
  


Sean nearly dropped the candle as he rushed up the stairs, and, as he regained his footing in the hallway, cursed himself for nearly setting his whole house ablaze.

Careful not to extinguish the flame, the young man set it on his desk, right next to the still-spinning clock, and began to search wildly through his closet.

It didn’t even matter what he wore, he thought, as long as he made it to his mother’s house.

That, after all, was most likely the place Julian had gone. Or, rather, it was where Sean had  _ hoped  _ he’d gone. For if he wasn’t there, then it was more likely he had returned to the riverbank, or was in an otherwise perilous situation. 

But the chances of him being in Yoko’s house were still good. He may have gone to speak to Kyoko, perhaps. 

But at such an hour?

Buttoning his shirt, the young man sighed, frustrated. It didn’t make sense.

There was nowhere Julian would logically be at such an hour.

Maybe,  _ maybe _ he had decided to visit Macca and Ringo. Yes! Maybe he had fallen into another one of the bird’s dreams, and had decided to seek their counsel on the matter. 

Now he was getting somewhere!

Dressed in a simple white shirt, britches, and a long, dull coat, Sean grabbed hold of his candle and, with great care, used it to light his lantern. 

For the second time he rushed down the stairs, tied his boots like his (or, rather, Julian’s) life depended on it, threw his cloak around his shoulders, tossed his hat upon his head, and then, forgetting his gloves, stepped into the snow. 

He was in such a rush, however, that he seemingly did not notice the bowl of strawberries on his table. 

Julian backed away as soon as he saw the pigeon, the heel of his right foot knocking into one of his chairs.

He winced at the pain, and through gritted teeth, asked, “What are you doing here?”

The pigeon, in response, blinked, and fluttered up into the air so that it could meet the man at eye level.

Julian grimaced. “This is all  _ your _ doing, isn’t it?”

It nodded and let out an affirming chirp, which only served to anger Julian more.

“Well, let’s make this quick, then,” he began as the creature settled on the table. “Just tell me what it is you want.”

Turning around then, he saw the bird hopping contentedly towards the punch bowl. It paid no mind to him as it did so, not even bothering to look at him as it inspected the bright red fruits.

“Well, spit it out!” Julian cried, flustered.

Here the pigeon turned to him, a strawberry held in its beak. For a moment it stood completely still, as if it were sizing up the man, trying to analyze his every move.

And then, in a slow, single motion, it placed the berry back in the bowl.

Once its beak was cleared, it ruffled its feathers, and, adjusting its posture, staring the man right in the eyes, let out a single, short coo. 

But before Julian could rage at it, not having found the answer he had sought, it flew outside, moving slowly, its eyes still fixed on him, as though it wanted him to follow. 

Running through the town under cover of the lilac clouds was easier said than done, Sean realized.

He had just left the forest, and although he saw no horses or travelers on the road ahead of him, he knew they would come. And when they did, they would not take kindly on the witch’s son running about like a madman in desperate search of his bastard brother. 

If he was caught, he would be taken to the constabulary, likely with the claim that he had been involved in a coven, and from then…

He didn’t want to think what would happen next.

To his immense luck and surprise, however, he did not pass a single person on his journey. No man or woman or child, not a single stagecoach or carriage, just… nothing. 

If it weren’t to his great benefit, it would have been quite unnerving. 

Finally, after a good half-an-hour, he reached the harbor. And although he knew not where exactly the mermen had made their temporary home, he could at least try and get their attention. 

So he called out to them for seven minutes precisely, their names falling like hail from his mouth, his voice straining as he wailed. An endless slew of Maccas and Ringos filled the air, each one more desperate then the last.

But, after exactly four-hundred-and-twenty seconds, the young man, gasping for air, his face aflush in the cold, realized that nobody was going to come.

He would have to move on. 

The pigeon led the way through the city, its wings flapping methodically. It was the only sound Julian could hear around him.

No wind blew, no leaves rustled, and not a single word was spoken. It was, needless to say, very eerie.

Every once in a while the bird turned to make sure the man was still behind it, and each time it annoyed Julian more and more. 

He loathed the fact that he was following the creature, and with good reason. He still didn’t forgive it for drowning him. And scaring the living daylights out of Kyoko. And haunting Macca’s dreams.

Really, he shouldn’t have taken up on its offer, but it was the only choice he had if he wanted answers.

So the two of them traveled quite a distance through the city, again passing churches, carriages, and homes with no one inside, until they came to a stop in front of a short, mossy wall.

Directly in front of them was a gate, painted glossy and red, and with spikes atop to keep out small animals. 

Small animals like pigeons, Julian thought. 

And on the subject of the pigeon, here it perched atop the wall, standing diagonally and to the right of the gate. From its vantage point up above, it peered down below, its eyes focused on the front of the wall. 

Not moving, it chirped.

Curious, Julian squinted to see the plaque the creature seemed so infatuated with. 

When he finally reached his mother’s house, both Sean’s legs and mind were utterly exhausted. But tired as he was, he could not give up. 

He didn’t want to frighten his mother or half-sister, and especially not Dhani. That boy, he thought, was a powder keg. Sean would rather not see him angry.

So, rather loudly, he pounded on the door in a rapid succession of knocks. 

And he waited.

And he waited some more.

And he waited a little while longer until he could no longer be patient, and, whether it earned him a rant from the mad young Sir Harrison or not, Sean allowed himself into the house, making his way swiftly upstairs and turning to his mother’s bedchamber.

He tried again to knock, but met a second time with no response, he had no choice but to force his way inside.

“Mother,” he called, holding his lantern out into the darkness. “Mother, I cannot—” 

Here he paused, nearly losing his footing. His mouth hung open in a gasp, his pupils dilating to the size of peas. 

His mother, too, was nowhere to be seen. 

Confused, and by that point, utterly terrified, the young man moved slowly into what had, at one point, been his bedchamber. He had since moved out, and so the room was now being used by Kyoko as a sort of second guest room.

He opened the door very slowly and held out the lantern, only to find an empty bed, with sheets as pale as his freshly-frightened face.

He repeated this process one final time in the guest room.

And, filling him with a sense of primal fear he had never felt before, he found himself to be alone in the house. 

“Strawberry Field…” Julian muttered.

The bird looked up at him, its eyes gleaming in the moonlight. It seemed to betray a sort of childish wonder on its face, an excitement, if you will.

Julian put his hands on his hips. “You brought me to an orphanage?” 

The pigeon nodded.

This was not a very satisfactory answer. “What, are you going to kill my mother and send me here?”  
  
Alarmed by the mere mention of the idea, the creature drew its head back, shaking it back and forth in protest. 

“So then,” Julian began. “why did you bring me here?”

At this the bird began to walk along the smooth edge of the wall, having pushed itself down from its pillar. And, in what was really a nonanswer, it began to sing.

It chirped a rather sad little tune, a soft, pitiful, almost wistful song, the meaning of which was absolutely indecipherable, seeing that it had no words. 

This annoyed Julian to no end. The bird could most certainly speak; he had known that for quite some time. But it chose not to, which made nothing easy on Julian’s part. 

“I don’t understand,” he sighed.

Here, the bird stopped moving, and it sang no song. Instead, perched on that wall, it sighed, its eyes downcast, as though it too, was annoyed with itself.

And then, it did something very interesting.

It managed to, for a fleeting second, croak out a single word, its voice as scratched and mangled as ever, and cracking upon its delivery. 

But regardless of  _ how _ it said it, it said, “Six.”

Sean realized, in that moment, that there was nothing he could do. 

He was very clearly in some kind of dream— one in which he was utterly alone, and desperate to escape. 

For far too long, he sat at the top of the stairs, his lantern at his side and his elbows rested on his knees.

There was nothing he could do, he thought.

He didn’t even have the pleasure of understanding what was happening. He just had to play along with it.

And had he done it well? Had he done, as of that moment, what he was supposed to? 

He wasn’t sure.

He suspected the bird’s involvement, of course. This sort of dream was absolutely unnatural, and that dove was the only creature that could ever cause it. 

And although he was rather close to the bird—much more so than anyone else in the company—he couldn’t help but be afraid of his current situation. 

He much preferred the company of others than himself. 

And seeing as such, when he heard the sound of music downstairs, it came as a great relief to him. 

He ran down the stairs and into the parlor, swinging open the door, and held his lantern out in front of him.

And what was in front of him was a soft white bird poking at hard ivory keys on the harpsichord.

When he came into the room, the creature met Sean’s eyes and chirped its familiar ‘nice-to-see-you’ chirp.

Sean sat at the harpsichord in front of him. 

“Six what?” Julian asked, frantic. 

The pigeon preened itself. “Six.”

“Why is that significant?” 

“Six.”

Julian’s face grew pink. “I still don’t know what that means!” he yelled.

The bird rolled its head back and forth, and then, as if it was just then deciding to move on, it continued, “Autumn.”

“Autumn?”

“Autumn.” 

“Alright…” Julian staggered. “But what does that have to do with—”

“Autumn…” the bird sang, its voice more earsplitting than melodic.

Julian crossed his arms and let out a deep sigh. “I really need you to explain yourself.” 

The bird looked up at him. “Song.”

“But what does it  _ mean _ ?!”

“Song,” the creature repeated. 

“Can’t you make any sense at all?”

The pigeon sighed, and lifted itself back onto its pillar. Looking down again at the plaque, and then back at Julian, it said simply, “Song.”

“Goddamnit!” Julian cried, exacerbated. “What song?”

The bird turned to the plaque.

“For the last time, I don’t understand!”

It fluttered into the air, lowering itself down, and scratched at the plaque with its foot. 

“Strawberry Field?” Julian asked. “Is there a song called Strawberry Field?”

The bird nodded.

“Well, I’ve never heard it.”

“Go.”

Julian drew back. “I beg your pardon?”

“Go,” The bird repeated itself, its voice becoming a bit clearer. 

“Well, I’d be more than happy to, love, but it looks like I’m stuck here.”   
“Julian.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake! What do you want?”

“Go.”

“Go where?”

Again, the bird clawed at the plaque.    
  
“This is Liverpool, you blind son of a street rat!”

“Julian.”

He said nothing, his chest heaving up and down with his breath. 

“Go.”

“Hello, sir…” Sean began.

The dove chirped in response.

“I did not know you could play the harpsichord.”

He nodded coyly.

Sean laughed. “What were you playing?”

At this, the bird grew very excited, and, so full of happiness, jumped on the keys, creating a rather pleasant harmony. 

The young man smiled and pushed his spectacles higher up on his nose. “Could you play it for me again?” he asked. “I’d like to hear it if I could.”   
And what he said was true. Presuming that his suspicions were right, and the dove was, in fact, somehow the spirit of his late father, then there was a chance he would be able to recognize the song he played. 

Now, it took a couple of tries for the dove to get it right. It was, after all, very difficult to play the harpsichord with your feet. 

But he eventually figured it out and began to play a rather simple tune, beginning by ascending two keys a couple of times, and then dropping down a bit below that. 

From there, it ascended a bit again, and then shifted down to an accidental in sharp contrast with the rest of the melody. 

Upon hearing it, Sean’s face changed from one of great anticipation to one of slight disappointment.

“I’m sorry…” he began, coming off as more emotional than he had intended. “I don’t— I do not recognize that.”

At this, the bird flew away, and Julian opened his eyes to find himself in darkness. 

_ Six. _

_ Autumn. _

_ Song. _

_ Julian. _

_ Go. _

The bird had not spoken many words, and yet the few words it did speak consumed the man’s every waking moment.

He sat upright in his bed, unsure what to make of his dream. On the floor next to him, the clock read an even, perfect, five o’clock.

The pigeon had wanted something of him; of that he was certain. It wanted him to go to Strawberry Field. But that was all the way back in Liverpool!

He could not just leave the company by themselves and sail the sea for three months for nothing. He simply would not do it.

He sighed. There was no way he would “go” anywhere. 

But, as his eyes meandered over to the rows of journals in front of him, he realized that he could work out the pigeon’s other words.

Six, autumn, song.

If the bird had been referring to the journals, then the song part made perfect sense. John had written quite a few songs over the course of his life.

And the autumn bit made sense as well. It could have been a song he wrote in the season. 

But the six could mean a number of things. The sixth day of the month, the sixth journal, something else he wasn’t picking up on… It was all up to chance by that point.

Julian took a deep breath in.

He had better begin searching, he thought. 

Confusing Sean even more, the dove played a new riff, staring him directly in the eyes as the notes ascended, and then quickly shifted to a lower note.

He repeated this over and over, an endless cycle of ascensions and descensions which did not make things any clearer.

“Why did you bring me here?” Sean asked after a moment’s hesitation. “Why did you put me in this dream?”

The bird continued to play.

“There has to be a reason,” Sean stated. “I know that much.”

Ascension.

“So, why?”   
  
Shift.

Sean sighed. He wasn’t going to get an answer. Not from Julian, or Macca, or Ringo, his mother… anyone really.

He couldn’t even get one from the dove. 

So, with nothing else to do, he let his eyes wander around the room. It looked the same as ever, for the most part. The walls were still plastered with grey wallpaper, the rug was still green. The contents under the rug were still better left unspoken of. 

The old doll still stood on the mantle, accompanied by the candy tin, the figurine of the pig, and the framed drawing of a young man. They had all always been there; as long as Sean could remember.

But in that instant, something was different about them. Or rather, something was different about the drawing.

He gazed into the young man’s eyes. 

And for a second, it seemed as though the young man met his.

But before Sean had the chance to process this, or even question what he saw, he heard the dove’s crackling voice over the ascensions and shifts.

“Ashes,” he spoke. 

Julian reasoned that “Strawberry Field”, as the bird had mentioned, would be listed somewhere between September and November, considering it had specifically mentioned autumn.

This narrowed his choices, but not by much. He still had to worry about the six bit.

It could either mean the sixth of September, the sixth of October, or the sixth of November—but that was assuming it meant the sixth day. It could also mean the sixth year, which, if Julian’s calculations were correct, would include only 1706 and 1716. 

Unless it meant a multiple of six… but he chose not to worry about that. Mathematics were never his strong suit, anyway.

He decided to start with the 1706. It was most likely that if the bird meant the sixth year, it meant the sixth year of the century. The sixth year of the decade… well, nothing was wrong with it, necessarily, but it just wasn’t as interesting. 

So for the time being, Julian would not worry about it.

He lit a candle, and then, holding it up in the air, walked over to his collection of journals.

The sixth one was now at the very end of the first row; he had left the seventh, the one with the prophecy, on Sean’s table downstairs.

That made it the second one missing, the first being the thirty-fourth, which, although not important at the moment, Julian still thought about often.

He made a mental note to go and look for it some day. 

The word greatly surprised Sean.

“I beg your pardon?” he asked.

The bird looked into his eyes, and, very calmly, repeated, “Ashes.”

“What about them?”

“Ashes.”

Sean furrowed his brow. Whatever the dove was trying to say, it was not getting through to him. 

“Could you say anything else?” he asked. “Anything to make that clearer?”

“Forest.”

“A forest?”

“Forest.”  
  
“A forest of ash trees?”

The bird shook his head. “Forest,” he repeated. 

“Which forest?”

“Forest.”

“The one by my house?”

The bird preened himself before saying another word. “Imagine.”

“Imagine what?”

“Imagine.”

Sean’s face fell. He knew he couldn’t keep asking the dove questions. All he would do was repeat himself.

“Imagine.”

Maybe he wasn’t worth talking to.

“Imagine.”

But then again…

“Imagine.”

It finally hit him.

Ashes.

Forest.

Imagine.

His body went numb, his head suddenly heavy as lead. Very slowly, in the same manner as a tired child, he whispered, “You want me to go to Strawberry Fields, don’t you?”

The dove looked into his eyes. “Go,” he pleaded. 

And then Sean awoke.

And he was no longer alone.

Julian picked up the journal, and did not waste a moment looking it over or flipping through its pages. Instead, he just moved through the months until he saw September. 

It started off with a short entry about a conversation John had had with Yoko about the inherent nature of absolute monarchy—nothing too interesting, really. 

And from then on, he found a series of drawings, entries, and eventually, songs.

He sighed, a bit angry with himself. At the rate he was going, he would never find it. There was too much he would have to comb through first, too much he was leaving out of the equation.

But, as he dragged through the month, and then moved onto October, he noticed something that caught his eye.

And, as fate would have it, that’s exactly when he found it.

_ STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER  _

_ Allow me to take thee down _

_ For I leave now to _

_ Strawberry Fields _

_ Nothing is real _

_ And nothing to get hung about _

_ Strawberry Fields forever _

_ Living is simple with eyes closed _

_ Misunderstanding all thou seest  _

_ ‘Tis rather tiring to be someone  _

_ Although all works out _

_ It doth not matter much to me _

_ Allow me to take thee down _

_ For I leave now to _

_ Strawberry Fields _

_ Nothing is real _

_ And nothing to get hung about _

_ Strawberry Fields forever _

_ No one, I believe, is in my tree _

_ Although it must be high or low _

_ That is, thou canst not, well, attend  _

_ Though all is well  _

_ That is, I think it not so bad  _

_ Allow me to take thee down _

_ For I leave now to _

_ Strawberry Fields _

_ Nothing is real _

_ And nothing to get hung about _

_ Strawberry Fields forever _

_ Always, nay, sometimes think ‘tis I _

_ Though thou know’st I know ‘tis just a dream _

_ I think, oh, nay, I mean, oh, aye _

_ Though all is wrong  _

_ That is, I think I disagree _

_ Allow me to take thee down _

_ For I leave now to _

_ Strawberry Fields _

_ Nothing is real _

_ And nothing to get hung about _

_ Strawberry Fields forever _

It was a momentous breakthrough! 

But what did it mean?

Without warning, the door flew open, causing Julian to flinch. 

“Jesus Christ!” he cried, turning around to see a wild-eyed and fully dressed Sean in the doorway. “What are you doing?” 

The young man looked as though he had risen from the dead. “I apologize for coming in so suddenly,” he began. “but I came to tell you I am leaving.”

Julian furrowed his brow and glanced at the clock. “Sean— it’s five in the morning.”

“I know,” he said. “but I must leave at once.”

“Why?” 

The young man faltered. “I know not. But believe me, it will be for our—nay, the entire company’s benefit.”

“What in hell could you be doing at this hour that is so important?”

Sean sighed, standing resolute as he said, “I must leave at once for Strawberry Fields.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well done! Very well done. 🍪


	27. Anything You Like

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Julian and Sean must leave.

Julian blinked, his face betraying disbelief and his eyes cast away from Sean. 

This worried the young man, to a certain extent, and so, less manically and more gently, he asked, “Do you know where that is?”

His older brother laughed. “Of course I do!” he said, tossing a hand in the air. “I just—” he paused, still trying to process the information. “You know what?”

Sean pursed his lips. “What?”

“Just… just start by telling me one thing.”

“Very well, then.”

“Tell me why,” the man spoke plainly, meeting Sean’s eyes again. “Why is it that you feel such a great need to leave?”

The younger man turned his eyes towards the heaven, and, taking a deep breath, began, “I know that it shall not be pleasing to you,”

Julian cocked an eyebrow.

“but I’ve been instructed, very clearly, might I add, to go to Strawberry Fields.” he hesitated. “And… this instruction was given to me in a dream,”

The older man’s face fell.

“by the bird.”

Upon finishing his sentence, Sean turned to his brother. And although he had expected a look of great concern, or perhaps even disappointment, on his face, considering he had just been dropping brick upon brick onto the man, he instead saw recognition. It was as though he, in some way, understood what he meant.

But his voice told a very different story, coming out hushed and frightened as a child’s. 

“Tell me what you saw,” he whispered.

Sean grew confused, unsure of where or how to begin.

This only exacerbated Julian’s fears, and so, more desperately, and much louder this time, he repeated, “Sean, tell me what you saw!”

The young man took a step back, still a bit tired and unwilling to be yelled at at such an early hour. “Alright, alright!” he snapped. “I dreamt—”

Julian’s face flushed. “My apologies,” he blurted out.

Sean sighed. “It is alright,” he said, holding out his hand.

Julian looked at his feet.

“It truly is alright.”

The older man sighed. “Just tell me what you dreamt,” he muttered, frustrated with himself. 

Sean nodded slowly. After a brief pause, he began, “I dreamt I awoke in my bed, and I left to check on you…” and then, seemingly for no reason at all, his eyes lit up. “Oh! And the hands of my clock were spinning. They weren’t fixed, as they usually are, they were spinning!” 

“Alright…” Julian whispered.

“Anyway, I left my bedchamber to check on you, although when I came inside, you were nowhere to be found. So naturally, I left to look for you, and I searched the harbor, thinking you had sought counsel from the mermen, but you were not there either.”

Here he stopped for a second to catch his breath. “So from there I ran to my mother’s house, thinking you might have been in there. But you were not, of course. I never did find you, you know.”

“Is that all?”

Sean laughed. “Oh, no! Because I approached the door to my mother’s bedchamber—you see, I was unaware of my being in a dream, and merely thought you had left somewhere—”

“Go on.”

“Right! So, I opened the door to my mother’s bedchamber, and found her missing as well. I did the same to Kyoko’s and the Sir Harrisons’; all of them were the same.”

A twinge of fear gleamed in Julian’s eyes. Slowly, he uttered, “There was no one there but you…”

Sean pushed his spectacles higher up on the bridge of his nose, accidentally smudging the lens in the process. He cursed himself for it before continuing, “Not exactly… See, after that, I heard music. It was the sound of the harpsichord being played. So naturally, I walked down the stairs to find the cause of the noise, and upon my entrance to the parlor, I saw the bird.”

At this, Julian’s skin began to crawl, repulsed by the similarity of their dreams. “Did it speak to you?” he asked, alarmed. “Did it say anything?”

Sean nodded. “It did. I approached him, and, after listening to his song a little while—I was hopeful I would recognize it, but, I digress—after listening to him, he began to speak to me. And he only said a few words, really. Which I do not blame him for. I suppose it’s a bit difficult for him to—”

Julian cut him off. “Six,” he spoke, a chill running down his spine.  
  
Sean smiled, nervous. “I- I beg your pardon?” he stammered.

“Six! It said six, didn’t it?”

The younger man squinted, rubbing his pursed lips together. “No…” he began slowly. “No, he didn’t. At first he said ‘ashes’, and then, after a minute, moved on to ‘forest’...”

Julian frowned.

“From there, ‘imagine’, and then,” Here he sighed. “and then ‘go’.”

Julian put a hand to his chin. “And that was all inside the parlor?”

“Aye.”

“So it was not in Strawberry Field?”

Sean raised his eyebrows. “Strawberry  _ Fields _ .” he corrected. 

“My apologies.”

“Naturally.” And, with a slight laugh, he added, “Strawberry Fields… You know, I was under the assumption you had forgotten about it.” 

Julian furrowed his brow. “Why would I forget? I only live forty minutes from it.”

Sean frowned, biting his lip. “Um, no. You do not.”

The older man crossed his arms. At first he had taken the rebuttal as a joke, just another one of his brother’s antics, but, seeing his disgruntled face, he realized that he was being completely serious. 

“Um, yes I do. I just went there in my dream.” 

“Do you mean it is only forty minutes from  _ here _ ?” Sean asked.

Julian shook his head. “Nay. I mean it is forty minutes from my home. As in the one I alone live in. In Liverpool. By myself.” 

His younger brother lifted his head a bit. “It isn’t a legitimate field of strawberries,” he clarified. 

“Yes, I know,” Julian nodded. “it is an orphanage. There just happen to be strawberries growing in the courtyard.” 

Sean paused. Melancholy, he said, “You truly have forgotten, haven’t you?”   
“I do not know what you are talking about.”

A hush fell like a thick velvet curtain between the two of them. 

Then Sean sighed. “I have no knowledge of the Strawberry Fields you speak of, but I am making reference to the patch of land where Father’s ashes were dispersed.”

Julian again furrowed his brow, his frown sinking lower on his face. 

“It was where the funeral was held, remember?”

The older man pursed his lips. Quietly, he responded. “Aye. Now that you mention it…”

“Exactly. Some time ago, my mother and I built a mosaic there. I do believe I wrote to you about it, although I suppose you may have forgotten…”

“My apologies, then.”

Sean chuckled. “Oh, no need. As I was saying, there now lies a mosaic there. It reads only a single word— “imagine”.” he chuckled. “That is why I figured the bird wanted me to go there.”   
The two stood silent a minute, and then, bringing his lantern just slightly lower to the ground, Sean asked, “What is it that you are reading?”

“Oh.” Julian met his eyes, a nervous smile on his face. “Right, I— well…”

Sean cocked an eyebrow.

“It’s just that— I seem to have had a very similar experience to you.”

“In regards to the dream?” the younger man asked.

“Aye.” Julian sighed. “Although, I was in Liverpool. And no one was around, you know. But I saw the bird, and it took me to the Strawberry Field—singular, that is—that I have always known.”

Sean didn’t seem to understand this answer. “So, what about the book, then?”   
“Well, the bird spoke to me as well. But the words it spoke were different. ‘Six’, ‘Autumn’... just- random words strung together, really. I interpreted them as having to do with Father’s journals, and so…” he held up the book. “I just started reading this one. The sixth, to be precise.”

“I see.” Sean nodded.

“Here, um,” the older man extended the journal, still open to the song, to him. “take a look, why don’t you?”

Sean was cautious to hold the lantern at just the right point that he could read the writing, but would not have to worry about hitting Julian in the face with it.

Julian watched as his eyes moved across the page, recognition gleaming in them from the very start. His lips muttered the text as he read it silently in his head.

Then, after what had to be the world’s longest minute, seeing as it was, for Julian, anyway, so riddled with tension, the young man looked up.

“It’s Strawberry Fields!” he whispered, his eyes now glazed over in that wild look that Julian knew meant he had fully latched onto an idea and would not let go of it unless it was pried from his cold, dead hands. “‘Allow me to take thee down, for I leave now to Strawberry Fields!’”

Julian nodded slowly, hesitant to confirm what would surely become Sean’s new favorite conspiracy. “That  _ is  _ what it says…” he muttered.

The young man beamed, running a hand through his hair as though without it, his brains would fall right out of his skull. “This is wonderful!” he cried.

Julian smiled insincerely. “I suppose so, yes.”

“It’s everything we’ve been looking for!”

“Everything  _ you’ve _ been looking for, anyway.”

“We must leave at once!”

The older man drew his head back. “What, now?”

“Yes, now! What other choice is there?”

“We- we could wait, perhaps?”

Sean scoffed. “I have to be in the bakery by the chime of seven. We either leave now or never leave at all.”

And with this, he began to walk out of the room, and, so consumed (and, in Julian’s opinion, blindsighted) by his own ideas, nearly fell down the stairs.

Julian poked his out of his bedchamber, utterly confused and a bit annoyed with having been so quickly discarded. “Am I to come with you?” he asked, stepping into the hallway.

Sean was already putting on his boots. “If that is what you so desire!”

Julian took a moment to look at his own feet. “I am not even wearing shoes!” he cried.

“Then you had better find a pair!”

It only took five minutes before the pair were both fully awake, completely dressed, and standing in the cold on their way to the notorious clearing in the woods. 

Sean had remembered his gloves this time, despite the fact that he was in arguably more of a rush than he had been upon realizing Julian had gone missing in his dream.

But as they walked along the road, he couldn’t help but find it strange how they had both had such similar dreams. And, presumably, both at the same time. 

They both involved Strawberry Field(s) in one way or another, both saw the bird, and both were instructed to go. But what was it they were to find there?

Oh, he couldn’t worry about it. For the time being, his mind was best kept concentrated on the task ahead of him, which was, of course, finding his way to the clearing in the dark, with only the light of his lantern to guide him. 

It would have been nice, he thought, to ask Julian his thoughts on the matter, and perhaps even spin the discussion to one on his earlier revealed theory as it pertained to the bird’s true identity. 

But although the path to Strawberry Fields was one he had walked many a time, he feared that if he were to stray from his focus, especially in such darkness, the two of them would end up lost.

So, no matter how strange it was to him, he did not say a single word as they walked.

Church bells rang out in the distance.

He did not comment on them.

The snow crunched beneath the men’s feet.

But Sean did not say anything.

It wasn’t until they finally came across the clearing, which, conveniently enough, Yoko’s house was not at all far from, that Sean raised his voice.

“This is it…” he whispered.

Julian walked ahead of him, fixated on a small black piece of concrete he could spot from under the snow.

Curious, and perhaps drawn in by the stark contrast, he advanced towards it, and began sweeping away the ice and snow with his foot, nearly slipping in the process.

Sean helped with this, and after a good couple of minutes, the full mosaic could be seen.

It was circular in nature, surrounded by a thick outer ring of black concrete which ended as it gave way to a thinner, tiled black ring. This was then alternated with one of white, and another of black, until a new ring appeared, checkered in a pattern of the two colors. 

From there, the majority of the mosaic was composed, a geometric pattern of black and white lines extended from an inner circle, embedded with trapezoids of ascending sizes. 

In the very inner circle, embedded with smaller black rectangles, sat a single word, written capitalized in simple black font.

Imagine, it said. 

Julian stood back to admire it.

“You built all this?” he asked.

Sean grinned, his cheeks flushing at the remark. “With my mother, of course.”

“Well, it’s very well done.”

“Thank you.” 

The older man put a hand to his chin. “But I have just one question.”

Sean straightened his posture.

“What is it that I’m supposed to imagine?”

“I’m afraid I’m not sure… my mother told me, of course. Many times, in fact! Although it seems to have escaped me.” The young man thought for a second, his face sobering up as he contemplated the query. Finally, he responded, looking Julian directly in the eyes as he said, “Anything you like, I suppose.”

The older man nodded. After a quiet minute, he muttered, “I think I’ll imagine the bird leaving us alone, then.”

This drew a hearty laugh from Sean, who found the joke a welcome change of pace from what would otherwise be a very somber sight.

He too, looked down at the mosaic, a soft smile on his face.

And then, as a new thought suddenly entered his mind, his face fell. He swallowed once before saying, his words like tar, “This is the first time you’ve been here since the funeral.”

Julian blinked. He was a bit drawn aback by his brother’s sad tone, but there was nothing much he could do about that. “It is,” he said. “It’s the first time I have been in New York since then, as well.” 

Sean nodded slowly. “That’s right…” he sighed.

A cold breeze swept through the clearing, rustling the branches of the barren trees, and bringing sheets of snow cascading into the air. 

“Do you remember it?” Sean asked, trying his best to shield the flurries from his eyes. 

“The funeral?”

He nodded.

Julian shrugged. “Of course.”

“It was sad,” Sean remarked. 

The older man wasn’t sure how to reply. It certainly  _ was _ a sobering event— very somber, very full of mourning (especially on the end of the widowed). But he had never thought of it as particularly sad. In fact, he had been rather angry at the time. At what, he wasn’t sure. 

Maybe he was angry with his father for what he had done in life. That certainly seemed plausible. 

Or maybe he was angry that he had died.

Maybe he was angry that the last time the two had seen each other, Julian had been upset with him.

Even after twenty years, he couldn't know anything for certain.

Nonetheless, he had known both at the time of the funeral and at the current moment that it must have been worlds more upsetting for Sean. He had been so young at the time, after all; he didn’t really grasp the concept of death. He just knew his father wasn’t ever going to come home.

“It was,” Julian finally sighed. “wasn’t it?”

Sean nodded, deep in thought, his eyes glazed over like china. “It was…”    
He forced a laugh, his head shaking from side to side. “I was so upset,” he said. “I was just crying and crying…”

Julian’s face hardened. The matter at hand was one that required a certain finesse to be able to speak confidently of— one Julian wasn’t sure he possessed. It would not have been hard for him to say the wrong thing and upset Sean, ultimately ruining both their days and potentially their relationship if the incident was grave enough. 

So he chose not to say anything at all. But he still worried that Sean would be offended by his lack of a response. It was a ferocious cycle, he thought, being so caught up in hypotheticals. No matter what he did or thought to do, there was always a chance of it having serious, long-term, unwanted consequences. 

Every decision he made, then, was made through a series of flaming hoops and impossible gymnastics, the scale of which could rival the finest showmen on Earth. 

And as any showman will tell you, by the end of the act, the body and mind are weary—exhausted even.

But however tiring it was, Julian continued on in his mind, busying himself with discourse on action and lack thereof, preoccupied with how Sean would interpret his response.

But Sean didn’t even notice it.

Instead, he was staring off into the distance, looking at nothing in particular, and reminiscing over his father’s funeral. 

After a minute, his features softened, and a smile crossed his face. Turning back to Julian, he began, “There was a dove here.”

Julian raised his eyebrows, confused. “I beg your pardon?” he asked. 

“The day of Father’s funeral,” Sean elaborated. “there was a dove here. You pointed it out to me, and, although not settling the problem at hand, it made me feel much better.”

The older man furrowed his brow.

Sean turned back to the mosaic, tracing its tiles with his eyes. “It was a nice little bird, I thought. It was sweet.” Here he laughed, his cheeks flushing in the cold. “And doves have always been my favorite animal,” he added. “ever since that day… Oh, I used to chase them around! My mother could tell you plenty of stories, I’m sure. Just ask her some time! It was wild…”

“No,” Julian said abruptly.

Sean blinked. “Pardon?”

“No.” 

The older man did not meet his gaze, his mind racing as thoughts and ideas suddenly came to him, paired inconveniently with the memory of the bird at John’s funeral. 

“You are wrong,” he finally said.

Sean pursed his lips, chapped and dry in the cold weather. “About what, exactly?”

Here Julian finally looked him in the eye, and Sean noticed that he did not look himself. He looked scared; terrified, even. He was unsure of himself, not fully believing the words he spoke. 

His pupils small, his mouth dry, and his heart beating out of his chest, Julian muttered, “It was a pigeon.”

Sean shook his head, baffled by the claim. “No,” he said. “it was a dove. I am sure, for I have held onto that memory for years, and it has been rather impactful on my life.”

“It was a pigeon!”

“It was not!” Sean raised his voice. “And I will not be made to believe that that memory is a lie!” 

Julian backed away. He had truly said something wrong this time, and in an instant, all his old fears of offending Sean re-entered his mind, seeping into his bones like water to a sponge. Clearly he had struck a nerve with the young man, and he did not want to upset him any further.

“My apologies,” he whispered.

Sean held out his hand, and although still quite upset, said, “No need.”

Julian took a deep breath. “I pray you,” he said. “just allow me to finish.”

The younger man crossed his arms, a look of doubt on his face. 

“I remember it very clearly to have been a pigeon. And very clearly, you remember it to have been a dove.” he paused. “Is that not right?”

“It is.”

“Then,” Julian bit his lip. “is there a chance that it could have been both?”

Sean’s face fell. “What do you mean?” he asked in a flat tone.

“Is there a chance that we saw the same bird, just… in different ways?” the older man paused. “Do you think it may have been…”

“You don’t mean—”

Julian nodded, and, right on cue, the pigeon (or dove, depending on who you asked) landed squarely on a nearby branch.

Sean looked towards the trees, startled by the sudden noise. 

Julian, however, did not hear it. 

He was rather confused as to why his brother was inspecting every tree in the area, his eyes wild, searching for something that may or may not have been real.

And he tried to ask about this, of course, but Sean only shushed him. 

Which led Julian, too, to turn to the trees, but, at first, he saw nothing.

Next to him, Sean’s eyes widened.

“It’s you…” he muttered, his gaze fixed on a low branch of a tree behind the pair.

Julian turned around to look at it. And it was there he saw it, in all its ominous majesty.   
  
Perched on the bark was a little grey bird, its own eyes focused behind the men at the mosaic.

Its feathers were freshly preened, its talons perfectly sharp, and in its little black beak, Julian could see a single, shining golden key, long and thin like a stick.

Sean took a step towards it. “Do you… recognize this place?” he asked, hesitant. “Do you know where this is?”

The bird shook its head.

Sean tried again to ask it, assuming it may have misunderstood the question, and, even more foolishly assuming he would get a different answer, but before he had the chance to finish, Julian interrupted him, having a question of his own to ask.

He wanted to cut right to the chase, you see. The less he could interact with the bird, the better.

“Why did you send us here?” he asked. 

The pigeon fluttered its wings, lifting itself into the air and diving onto the ground below the two, standing up to the top of its legs in the snow. 

With its tiny red eyes, the creature looked up at Julian.

And it just blinked, shifting its gaze back and forth between the two men.

At this, Julian became frustrated. 

“Don’t you just stand there!” he cried. “Tell my why you—”

Sean put a hand on his brother’s shoulder, causing him to flinch. 

“Do not yell at him,” he warned.

“I just want to know why it wanted us here so bad.”

“He’ll tell us on his own time.”

Julian rolled his eyes. “That’s an awfully nice way to say never,” he muttered.

Sean slackened his jaw, his face portraying both disappointment and contempt at the remark. 

Julian flushed under his gaze and tried profusely to apologize.

But his brother decided not to listen. He turned his gaze towards the mix of dove and snow, wanting to speak to the creature some more, but was surprised to find that, well… it was just snow.

He looked up, and was greatly startled to find the bird right in front of his face, so much so that he let out a bit of a yelp.

Julian, too was startled, concerned for the young man’s safety. 

“Get off of him!” he hissed, swatting his hand at the creature. “Get! Come on, go!”

“Don’t be mean to him!” Sean protested, holding out his own hand to shield the dove. “He hasn’t done anything!”  
  
The two went back and forth a bit, all with the bird caught in the middle, and, after a minute, Julian finally got a hit on it. 

It drew back with a frightened squawk, dropping the key in the process. 

“Oh, look what you did!” Sean chastised.

Julian muttered an apology as the younger man bent down to pick up the long golden key, clearing away snow with his hands.

It got to the point where Sean was no longer able to feel his fingers, but, after a bit of diligent searching, he was able to retrieve the key.

He stood back up with it in his hand, and, outstretching it to the bird, he said, “Here. I apologize for him, sir. He was only acting on his previous understanding that—”

The bird held out its foot, pushing the key back towards Sean. 

He blinked, unsure what to make of the gesture, and tried again to hand the key to the dove, who, again, rejected it.

Solidifying its position, it let out a short caw, bobbing its little head as it tried its best to communicate.

Sean was charmed by the creature’s actions, but still didn’t understand them. So he looked to Julian for help, asking, “What do you think he wants?”

The older man shrugged. “Honestly, I think he wants to kill us.” 

Sean sighed. “But truly, what do you think—”

“I’m not sure.”

Again, the bird cooed, pushing the key closer and closer to Sean’s chest with its foot as it struggled to balance itself in the air. 

Sean held out his free hand to try to support the creature. “Do you want me to keep this?” he asked.

Excitedly, it nodded.

The young man laughed.

Julian stood next to him, his arms crossed.  
  
“What is it for?” he demanded.

The bird threw its head back, and for a second, Julian worried it would lurch it forward, screeching at him like no devil on land or in the netherworld. 

But, fortunately for his already poor hearing, it did no such thing, and merely leveled its head back to its original position.

Sean raised himself onto the balls of his feet, craning his neck to try and get a better glimpse behind the mosaic. 

“Is there something back there?” he asked, squinting in the dim lantern light. 

The bird nodded twice.

Once while looking at Julian.

And once while looking at Sean.

And then, just as quickly as it appeared, it flew away, soaring high into the air, and disappearing from view under the dusk sky. 

“Wait!” Sean cried. “Wait, I need you to talk to me!”

“Sean,” Julian warned.

“No! I need you to tell me—”

“ _ Sean _ .”

“Were you the dove I saw here twenty years prior?!” he shouted, no longer caring who heard him. 

“Sean, we’ve other matters on our hands.”

The younger man’s face fell, deeply unsettled and even a tad upset that he could not speak to the creature. He needed answers, he thought. If the blasted thing had just stuck around for  _ one more minute _ , he could have found the cornerstone of his whole theory! The smoking gun, the nail in the coffin, if you will, for his ivory logic.

But the bird had already flown away, and now, not even a single feather could be seen in the snow. 

“Sean…” Julian whispered. “are you going to be alright?”

“I need to find that damned bird,” he hissed. “I must speak to it as soon as possible.”

“It isn’t wise—” the older man began.

Sean cut him off. “I need answers!”

“And you can get them!” Julian matched his tone of voice, irking Sean just a bit, but more so humbling him. “Look, that thing brought us here for a reason. It wants us to use that key for…” he tossed a hand up, choking on his words. “ _ something _ , I suppose… and it told us that we need to look over there to find it.”

Sean shifted his weight.

“You must remember, it doesn’t communicate through any logical means. It would rather drive us all mad than tell us a complete sentence.”

“You make a good point,” the younger man sighed. “I am truly sorry for being such a hang-in-chains.”

Julian let out an insincere chuckle. “Naturally, naturally…” 

He turned his attention to the opposite end of the clearing. “Now,” he started. “shall we?”

“We shall.” Sean nodded.

And so they did, walking on either side around the mosaic, Sean staring at the key in his hand the whole way. 

He wasn’t sure what he would find on the other side, but he was rather excited to find out what it was.

Which made it all the more disappointing that he saw nothing.

Julian crossed his arms.

“That is...” he drew a deep breath in. “Well, it is beyond me why I expected otherwise from that fat little blunderbuss.” 

Sean shook his head. “It should be here.”

“Maybe we just haven’t searched hard enough? I mean, all we really did was walk two yards around a mosaic.”

“It had better be here…” Sean muttered. “I didn’t come here for nothing.” 

The two began to search for anything a key could fit inside, walking around trees, shrubs, and bushes, retracing their steps, and turning about every which way, checking every inch of the clearing from every angle. 

But time after time, they came up with nothing.

“Maybe it unlocks something in your mother’s house?” Julian suggested, combing through a bush. “Is it this way?”

Sean shook his head. “No, it’s to the west.”

Julian hummed. 

“Mayhaps the key unlocks the chains of one’s mind,” Sean jeered. “That’s what she would say, anyway.”

“Your mother?”

“Aye.”

The older man got a good laugh from this, although he did not show it. Its humor, he thought, derived from its truth. 

“What do you think it unlocks?” Julian asked.

Sean contemplated this as he held his lantern up to the top of a tree. “Likely something critically important that we lack the basic cleverness of man to find.” 

“Oh, don’t you drag yourself like that.”

“Maybe it’s you I’m dragging,” the younger man joked half-heartedly. 

“We’ll find it.”

Sean laughed. “Since when are you the optimist here?”  
  
“I am an optimist,” Julian said, leaning against a tree. “only when it serves to aid you. The real question is, since when are you a pessimist?”

“I am a pessimist in the face of reality.”

“That reality being…”

“That we shall never find whatever this key is intended for, and I might as well jam it into a knot hole and be done with this whole affair.”

Julian shook his head. “Really? That is your outlook?”

“Might as well—”

Stumbling upon another barren bush, Sean became deadly silent, his whole body stiff, as if it had frozen over completely.

“Sean?” Julian asked.

He said nothing.

“Sean?” the older man repeated, this time with a bit more emphasis and concern.  
  
In a single, rushed, stitched-together bundle of words, Sean responded, “You must come here right this very instant.”

Julian walked over to him. “Have you found it?” he asked.

In response, Sean crouched low to the ground, and, handing the key off to Julian, grabbed a short, stout chest, large enough to hold liquor or medicine. 

It was rectangular in shape, plated with brass at the edges, and bore a pure black lock on the front. 

Shaking, Sean stood up. He turned to Julian with a grin, and, quietly, gave him a single instruction.

“Open it,” he said.

Julian nodded.

Very slowly, for he feared what might be inside, he stuck the key inside the lock. It fit marvelously, he thought, better than any chest he had ever owned. And it turned with ease, a delightful clicking sound ringing out as the chest was unlocked.

With his free hand, Julian lifted the lid, pressing it against Sean’s shirt.

Both of them turned their heads down to look inside, the only sound being their breathing and heartbeats. 

The inside was not fanciful, not lined with velvet or anything of that nature. It was just a wooden box.

And the entirety of its contents were limited to one object— a long piece of what Julian knew, as both a longshoreman and a good friend of Maca’s, to be sea glass, about the size of the size of a grown man’s palm, and a murky black in color.

Before Sean had the chance to ask what exactly it was, it began to change, turning steadily from a dark grey to a purer grey, and from then to a deep lilac, until it finally settled on a sort of amethyst color.

And while it changed in its color, that is that to say, as it went from black to purple, an image began to appear in the glass, becoming clearer as the color grew in brightness and intensity.

It started off as just a vague silhouette, a shadow, almost. But as the looking glass grew grey, it began to gain some color, and what could be loosely described as a form. It looked pale, like English skin, and was marred on the edges with an oak-brown color, underneath all of which a white the shade of lace became apparent. And it was only at the sea glass’s final stage that the shape became completely clear, its features becoming distinctly separated, and its eyes opening. 

The two men were horrified to find their father staring back at them, expressionless. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ey, any of you know why this keeps showing up under a lot of the other fics after posting? I find it hard to believe that within 0.32 seconds of me posting, everyone else did too. I don’t know. Just don’t want y’all to miss out on the Demonic Bird Experience™️.
> 
> (Forgive me if this is something that happens all the time— this is still my first fic)


	28. A Great Spectrum of Colors and Queries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a decision is reached.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: F R E N C H  
> (Translations are in the end notes, but be aware— I do not speak French in any capacity. Translations are provided by Dr. Google. If you happen to speak French, and would like to improve them, let me know!)

A rush of adrenaline flowed through Julian’s body, and without even thinking, he slammed the chest shut.

Sean jumped at the noise, meeting his brother’s eyes as the lid fell away from his own chest and atop the wooden one.

The older man took several staggered steps back, bringing his hands to his head to keep his brains in their rightful place, his fingers crawling on his scalp like spiders on a web.

There was nothing he could say about the situation. It truly felt as though he had forgotten how to speak.

“Julian?” Sean croaked.

He turned to him, his face sickly pale.

The young man shifted uncomfortably. “What- what are we supposed to do about this?”

In response, Julian tossed up his arms, his cloak swaying behind him as he did so. He stammered out vague vowels and syllables, curses and exclamations of annoyance— anything but a complete sentence, really.

Sean frowned. “Julian?” 

“You know what we’re going to do?” the older man finally said, admittedly a bit louder than he needed to.

Sean blinked.

“What we should do,” Julian began, wagging his finger in the air. “is bury that horrible chest so that it never sees the light of day again.”

At this, Sean became defensive, pulling the box closer to him, and even shrouding it with his cloak. “But the bird wanted us to find it!” he cried.

“And use it for what, exactly?”Julian hissed, his whole body awake and alive, gesticulating wildly in anger. 

The younger man faltered. He wasn’t sure how to answer that. Actually, he wasn’t even sure what the object inside was. 

But he did know one thing.

Slowly, he began, “He wanted us to have it to prove a point.”

“Oh don’t you even start with tha—” 

“He _wants_ us,” Sean continued, raising his voice. “to know his true identity. And by giving this to us, he has thus done so.”

Julian began to regain his composure. Although his chest still heaved up and down wildly and he could still hear his heart beating inside his chest, he noticed that both began to slow in their pace.

It didn’t bother him that Sean tied the sight of their late father into his theory. Hell, he would have been more surprised if he hadn’t. 

No, what bothered him was that he could not refute the evidence. 

There was no counterclaim he could make, and, as begrudgingly as he may have realized it, he realized that the vision was, put plainly, damning evidence for the young man’s conspiracy.

Julian was now being forced to grapple with the fact that his father’s ghost seemed to have been haunting the company in the form of a bird.

And he was  _ not  _ happy about it.

His right hand rubbing his temple, he paced in a small circle. 

Sean’s eyes, obscured by the reflection of the lantern light on his spectacles, watched him intently, awaiting his brother’s response.

And, finally, he got it.

“We need to take this to Macca,” he huffed, trying to rationalize the situation. “He’ll know what to do, I’m sure.”

Sean furrowed his brow. “But he is all the way in the harbor!”

“Do you have a better idea, then?” Julian snapped. 

Sean took a deep breath in, beginning to grow frustrated with his brother. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

Julian straightened his posture.

“I say we should take the chest to my mother’s house. From there, we can assemble the entire company, including the mermen—somehow—and discuss the nature of its… contents.”

“I thought you had to be in the bakery by seven.” the older man noted.

Sean nodded. “That is true, but… we’ve still some time. If we hurry, we can make it.” 

“Do you really think so?”

He shrugged. “There’s a chance. We will quickly come upon my mother’s house, what with its close proximity.”

Julian crossed his arms. “And as for the mermen?”

“Do you know where they are in the harbor?”

“No…” the older man squinted. “but I could ask a local to send for them, provided they speak Naiadic.”

Sean’s eyes lit up. “Oh! Yes, you can go and do that, and—”

“Without a lantern?”

The younger man hummed, not having thought of that before. After a minute, he resolved, “I’ll just give you mine once I reach my mother’s house. I truly shan’t be very long.”

Julian nodded, and Sean, acknowledging this, began to walk at a brisk pace around the monument and to the west. 

“Make haste, then,” the young man said. “for we’ve not  _ that _ much time.”

Yoko awoke to the sound of someone pounding on her door, crying out that she must allow him inside.

She sat up in bed, her heart racing. Her immediate thought was that the constabulary had returned with a new accusation against her, be it having partaken in a coven in the night, or poisoning a local, or even causing the blizzards that had recently been plaguing the town.

“Mother!” the voice called.

Her eyebrows raised. If it was Sean, she thought, then it was another story. 

Lighting a candle, she began down the stairs, opened the door, and poked her head outside.

There, Julian gently suggested that Sean lighten his tone a bit, but was overshadowed by the sound of the door creaking, a sliver of the foyer visible in the lantern light.

On the other side, the two men found a very disgruntled and half-asleep Yoko, her hair a mess, her chemise still on, demanding to know what was wrong with them, banging on her door at such an hour. 

It was here that Sean practically shoved the lantern into Julian’s chest, causing him to flinch, and instructed him to run to the harbor. 

He promptly did so, which only served to confuse Yoko even more.

“You had better have a _very_ good reason—” she began, allowing her son inside. 

“I do,” he assured. “Gather everyone, if you will, and tell them to please come into the dining room. I’ve something very important to show you all.”

Yoko drew back, surprised by the sudden list of orders. But she complied, nonetheless, instructing Sean to fetch some water for tea as she went upstairs.

His trip to and from the well was nothing especially notable, apart from the immense speed with which he retrieved the water, poured it into the pot, and set the pot atop the oven coals. 

After this had all been done, he tossed his chest on the dining table and sat eagerly behind it at the back end of the room, near the window.

He rested his elbows atop the wood and placed his head in his hands as he waited for the water to boil and the company to arrive.

He had done it, he thought.

At last, he had found perfect evidence to support his hypothesis, and in a moment, he would debut it to everyone. Then they would understand. 

Then they would finally believe him.

Anxious in his anticipation, he opened the lid of the chest just enough to peek inside. 

But nothing could be seen in such darkness, so it was then that it occurred to him he should most likely light some candles. They would be necessary if he wanted anyone to believe his case.

They had to see to believe, he thought.

So, again working with great speed, he stumbled towards the hearth in the parlor, walking idly around the room until he found the flint and steel atop the mantle. 

And, moving back into the dining room, he lit several candles, roughly about four or five in each corner, along with the two on the table. 

It was here that he heard Yoko walking down the stairs, each one creaking under the weight of her body.

He turned to face her.

She was still wearing her chemise, and, knowing her, she would not be keen to change out of it at such an hour.

“They are not happy to be forwoke,” she said, stepping into the doorway. “And quite frankly, nor am I.”

Sean laughed. “I understand, Mother, but do believe me when I tell you that it is of utmost importance you are.”

Yoko nodded lazily, and then turned her attention to the chest. “Where did you find that?” she asked, taking a seat next to him at the table.

“I shall tell you once everyone else is here.”

She yawned once before continuing, “Why did you send Julian to the harbor, then?”

“I needed him to fetch Ringo and Macca.” he explained. “They ought be here as well.” 

“You should have told me this was to be a formal event, I would have worn my nice hat.”  
  
Sean chuckled. “You mean to say you would have worn anything else at all.”

“Of course.”

With this, Kyoko entered the room, groggy and still adjusting her cap. 

“Was it truly necessary for you to come here at such an hour?” she asked Sean. 

“Indeed,” he said. “now do take a seat. I’ve got water boiling for tea.”

She did as she was told, and the young man left to go check on the status of the aforementioned tea-water. 

It hadn’t changed much, he noticed. But he did wish it would boil a smidge faster, lest the company revolt against him for waking them and not even bothering to serve tea. 

He sighed and returned to the dining room, only to find the two Sir Harrisons taking their seats, just as ill-prepared and annoyed as everyone else.

Sean smiled at the sight of them. “Good morrow, Sir Harrison,” he said. “Dhani.”

George grunted in vague acknowledgement before falling into one of his coughing spasms, leaving Dhani caught between helping the old man and glaring at Sean.

“This had better be worth our time…” he muttered, rubbing his father’s back and looking the young man up and down. 

“Oh, I’ve no doubt it is.” Sean assured, taking his seat. 

Between wheezes, Sir Harrison asked, “Why is it that we’ve been gathered here, then, if it is of such importance?”

The young man drew his chair closer towards the table. “I’m afraid that to find that out, we must wait until Julian and the mermen arrive.”

At this, Kyoko and the two men began to protest, complaining that they would not be able to stay awake for such a long time, and suggesting rather harshly that Sean get on with whatever it was he wished to tell them. 

“Settle down,” Yoko warned. “at the speed he was going, he will be back very soon.” 

“Is that truly so?” Dhani asked in a satirically doubtful tone.

The old woman nodded. “Aye. He left with the devil on his heels, by the looks of it.”

At this the young Sir Harrison raised his eyebrows, and Kyoko simply shook her head, her cheek dragging into her palm.

She was not keen to wait, although she supposed if her mother’s description was accurate, she could bear the strain it caused her eyelids.

Just.

For.

One more…

Moment.

And to her benefit, along with everyone else’s, just as Sean began to set out cups for tea, Julian stepped inside, Ringo behind him and Macca in the octopus-man’s arms.

Kyoko snapped back to a state of wakefulness.

“We’ve arrived,” Julian panted, his cheeks flushed from both the cold and the great deal of running he had done. 

Sean nodded as he brought the teapot into the room. “Sit down, then,” he said. “I’ve made tea.”

The older man wasted no time following the order, slinking into the seat next to Dhani like a little cat in someone’s lap. Ringo did the same, placing Macca in the seat next to Yoko and seating himself at the head of the table.

Dhani tried as discreetly as he could to move his chair closer to his father’s, uncomfortable to be sitting next to the witch’s… stepson. But as fate was fickle; exactly as he did so, Sean came up from behind him to pour him a cup of tea. He promptly flinched, causing the young man to meet his eyes.

“My apologies,” he said with a nervous grin. “it was not my intent to frighten you.”

Dhani swallowed. “It is alright.”

Sean nodded in acknowledgement, and then, addressing the whole table, began, “We’ve milk out in the kitchen, if you’d like some, and sugar in the pot on the table therein. I should have thought to place them out…” he shook his head. “Here, let me go find them. I shall only be a moment.”

With this, he quickly ran into the kitchen, opening cabinets and moving jars of salt and flour aside as he searched for the milk and sugar.

Yoko craned her head. “Do be careful,” she warned. “And bring one in at a time, lest you spill something.”

A resounding confirmation was heard in the other room, and, as Macca rubbed his hands together, eager to hear news of Julian’s latest finding, Sean came inside, utterly disregarding his mother’s advice, carrying a shining bottle of milk in one hand and a short pot of sugar in another.

In a strange sort of sense, George thought, he looked like a king ready to be crowned, his scepter and orb at the ready. The King of Forwaking Everyone!

He snickered to himself, amused by the idea.

Finally, after all the commotion, mishaps, and anticipation, Sean set both down on the table and moved back to his seat.

Drawing it nearer to the table, and thus, nearer to the chest, he turned his attention to the company.

All of their eyes were placed squarely on him, and it was at that moment he realized that he was about to change, well, everything. 

If all went as planned, then soon the company would have no choice but to reconcile with his ivory logic.

That said, it wasn’t that he wanted them to see the err of their ways, and thus immediately see the appeal of his own, rendering him beyond the shadow of a doubt the most clever and intellectual member of the company. It was more so that he wanted to prove his point and make it known to the others that even in the face of adversity, he could provide evidence and logical deduction for his claim.

To put it simply: More than anything, Sean wanted a healthy debate— preferably one in which he was victorious.

It was the age of reason, after all, an intellectually savvy and overall wonderful time for mankind. And as much as the young man would have loved to contribute, he could not simply ignore the fact that his, shall we say, notorious kinship and ultimately unusual appearance would certainly prevent him from doing anything of meaning.

Instead, he had been delegated to a debate pertaining entirely to the matter of a demonic bird that may have also been, and most likely was, his dead father.

It wasn’t exactly what he had wanted, but he was grateful to finally partake in something.

With a deep breath, he began, “Julian and I, after some rather uncouth magical dreams, the likes of which we needn’t dwell upon, were directed to go to our father’s grave this morrow. Strawberry Fields, you may recall.”  
  
Macca’s eyes widened. 

“Upon arrival, we found the bird, who held in his mouth a single key, implied to be of some use on an object behind us. We began to search for said object—the bird had flown away by that point, you see—and after a while, we came upon…” he directed his hands towards the chest in front of him. “this. And its contents, we believe, while quite unsettling, are of utmost importance to this company’s mission. That is to say- well, I’ll allow it to speak for itself.”

So, hesitating no more, invigorated by the spirit of the time, drawn to attention by the severity of the situation, shaking with anticipation, a sickly sweet feeling developing in his stomach, Sean cleared his throat, trying his hardest to shake the primordial fear that came with seeing the dead, pushed his spectacles high enough upon his nose so that he could see the chest in full view, and placed his hands upon it, using both his thumbs to lift the lid, and, head held high, retrieved the looking glass.

Which was now, to his immense surprise, jade-green.

Inside, he no longer saw his father, but himself as a young boy, old enough to walk and speak in more or less complete sentences, but likely not enough to read.

His jaw dropped to the floor.

Perhaps Sean’s ivory logic was not as infallible as he had once believed.

“It changed color again?” Julian asked, alarmed.

To this the younger man had no response. It certainly seemed that way.

“I don’t understand…” he muttered with a nervous smile. “Just a moment ago, it was…”

Macca wrung his hands together on the table, taking great care not to scratch the wood with his claws. “What?” he asked. “What was it?”

“What do you see inside?” Julian demanded, overshadowing the siren. “Is it still—”

Sean shook his head, disheartened. “No, no… I see myself.”

“What did you see before?” Kyoko asked, her hands placed in her lap.

“And more importantly,” George chimed in. “what is that thing?”

“Sea glass?” Ringo suggested.

Macca nodded slowly. “It would seem so…” And then, turning to Sean, he added, “Could I see it please?”

The young man, his eyes empty and his mind wandering, abided, handing the looking glass over to Kyoko so that she might pass it down the table, ultimately reaching the siren.

She looked inside, and was surprised to see a reflection of her younger self, a girl who had, for all intents and purposes, been lost to time. It truly was a sight to behold, but not one she could afford to behold. So it was with a sigh she passed the mirror to her mother, who, upon seeing her own reflection, gasped and nearly dropped the thing.

This caused Sean to fall physically ill. He did not take time out of his morning, after all, to have his mother break one of the company’s most interesting—albeit irritating—discoveries thus far.

Kyoko swiftly came to Yoko’s aid, placing a hand on her shoulder to comfort her, which her mother rejected.

Confused, the younger woman asked, “What did you see?”

But Yoko did not speak, her hand pressed firmly against her own mouth, her face a deathly pale, as though she could not bring herself to remove it.

From her left side, Macca leaned in. “Yoko?” he whispered.

The old woman shook her head as she passed the looking glass to the siren. “That thing is evil,” she spat. “do you have any idea what I saw?”

Macca, staring into the jade abyss, was unsure exactly why his former captain had been so frightened. He saw himself. A younger version of himself, granted, but it was still someone he recognized. There was nothing overtly terrifying or mischievous about the image. It was strange, sure, almost otherworldly, but nothing to be so concerned about.

“No. What was it?” he asked absentmindedly, turning his head to inspect every inch of his face.

Yoko furrowed her brow. “I saw myself spattered in blood,” she said, her words barely audible. “Whose, and for what reason, I know not. But I would be very careful if I were you, Sean.”

Her son frowned, his eyes downcast as the woman’s words echoed in his mind. 

“It was not like this before!” he insisted. 

At this, Macca looked up. “What was it like, then?”

Pushing his spectacles back to their rightful position, Sean began, “When we found it, it was black. And then it grew violet, and when Julian and I looked inside…” he paused a moment, his shoulder sinking. “we saw our father.”   
The siren blinked. “You did?”

Both men muttered a confirmation.

“Although now I only see my younger self…” Sean sighed. 

Macca gazed into his own eyes. “As do I.”  
  
“And I,” Kyoko added.

At this point, the company directed their gaze on Yoko, still rather out of herself. 

She met their eyes after a moment, and with a sigh, muttered, “I as well.”  
  
On Macca’s left, Ringo tried to get a glimpse of the looking glass.

He found that he could not see very much of it from his angle, and so, poking Macca with one of his tentacles, he asked, “May I?”

The siren obliged, but as he slid the sea glass in front of the octopus-man, something strange happened.

The now infamous looking glass changed color a third time, growing a rosy red before the company’s very eyes.

Sean fell back in his chair, his body limp and his eyes searching. If the situation wasn’t so ominous, he would have laughed.

“Again?!” Julian cried.

Macca tossed his hands in the air, drawing back from the mirror. “How is that even possible?” he uttered. 

Ringo stared into the sea glass. “I’m not sure…”

Inside, of course, he saw himself. He looked about the same, more or less. He made a mental note to shave, bringing his hand to his face.

Oh, he thought.

He  _ had  _ shaved.

That was a bit odd.

Opposite him, Sean tossed a hand in the air, ready to completely give up on any hope of living. “For the love of God!” he cried, exacerbated. “What do you see  _ now _ ?!”

The octopus man simply shrugged, a sharp contrast to everyone else’s ravenous fearing-for-their-lives. 

“I see myself,” he said.

George put his hand to his chin. “Do you look the same?”

“I’ve a beard.” 

The others looked around. It wasn’t a very startling revelation— certainly not on the same level as a blood-spattered Yoko.

“Could you hand it to me, please?” Julian asked after a moment.

Ringo nodded, taking great care to slide the looking glass over to the young man without changing its color.

To his and everyone else’s relief, it remained the same rose red as Julian reached for it.

Until the man held it at eye level, that is, at which point it shifted to a vibrant blue.

Dhani yelped, drawing away from the man to his right, and leaning into his father.

George held out a hand in an attempt to calm him.

“What is it now?” Sean asked, defeated.

Julian pursed his lips. “It’s nothing,” he said.

Macca tilted his head in empathy, his face growing serious in a way most of the company had never seen. “Jude, whatever it is, you can tell us.”

“No, no,” the man interrupted. “That isn’t what I mean. I don’t see anything.”

Kyoko blinked. “Nothing at all?”

He nodded. “Nothing at all.” 

In an attempt to do something—anything, really—he waved it back and forth, trailing his eyes along with it and scaring the living daylights out of Dhani every time it drew near to his person. 

Right as he was about to set it down on the wood, it changed color again, fading back to violet.

Julian raised his eyebrows. “Sean, it’s back!”

The younger man snapped to attention. “Do you still see Father?”

He peered inside. 

No one was there.

Deflated, he sighed, “No. I don’t.”

At this, Sean began to lose his patience. Just when he thought his theory could be proven, it seemed, the bird, whoever he was, would throw him for a loop, spinning the whole world off its axis with a single revelation. It was beginning to grow tiresome, a bother, even.

The young man did not have enough time or patience to play his mind games.

“Well,” he cried. “what  _ do  _ you see?”

Julian shook his head. “Nothing at all.”

At this Macca became concerned. “A second time?” he asked. 

The man nodded.

The siren pressed his hand against his temple. “Why is  that?”

Julian sighed. “If I knew, I would tell you.”

“Could it be,” George began with a wheeze. “that you are the nowhere man?”

The company focused their collective attention on the old man.

“Seeing nothing…you know.” he snapped his fingers. “Sean!”

“Yes?”

“Didn’t you say that it was possible the nowhere man could be him?”

The young man drew back, his cheeks growing rosy as he recollected the previous night. “Well- yes…” he stammered. “but I’m not so sure anymore.”

Julian raised his eyebrows. “Honestly?”  
  
“Perhaps.”

“You’ve let go of an idea?” he asked, incredulous.

Sean crossed his arms. “Mayhaps I have,” he huffed. “mayhaps I have not. Now could we please move on?”

  
Julian muttered an apology, his eyes downcast.

“Here,” the young man suggested. “how about Dhani takes a look?”

Dhani turned to him, his eyes wild. “I will do no such thing, heathen!” he began, much to the surprise of Sean and everyone else present. “I am a holy man, and seeing as so, I shall not allow myself to fall victim to the heinous schemes of the devil—”

“Dhani…” George warned.

“For as was written by King James the First—”

“Dhani.”

“Satan can transform himself into an angel of light!”

George grabbed hold of his arm. “Dhani!  _ Arrêtez de vous ridiculiser, s’il vous plaît. _ ” **(1)**

“ _ Mais père _ —” **(2)**

“Dhani!  _ Il n’est pas nécessaire d’être aussi sévère. Si vous ne souhaitez pas tenir le miroir, dites-le-lui comme un gentleman! Vous savez qu’il n’y a pas de place ici pour une telle colère. _ ” **(3)**

Dhani drew back, his face flushing. 

George sighed. “ _ J’attendais mieux de toi. _ ” **(4)**

A moment of silence arose between the two of them, although it was more of a moment of tension to the rest of the company, none of them being francophones. 

Finally, George turned to the others. “Do forgive him,” he said. “he’s not been in his right mind as of late.” 

“Understandable.” Julian replied. Anyone would be out of their right mind if they were the bastard relative of the Merry Monarch. The infamous, exiled Merry Monarch. The dionysion, deathbed Catholic— the Merry Monarch.

At least he saved England from the Cromwells.

“Now,” George began, straightening his coat. “might I see the mirror, please?”

Julian nodded. “Certainly. Although I’m not sure if I would call it a mirror. It truly isn’t one, you know.”  
  
“Not in the traditional sense, anyway,” Sean sighed.

As the looking glass again changed hands, passing from Julian to George directly. Dhani did not dare touch it, for fear of what curse Sean may have instilled upon it.

Whatever the warlock’s purpose in bringing the mirror to the company, he thought, it couldn’t be a force for good.

Still, he couldn’t help but to peek at it as it passed from the longshoreman’s hands into his father’s.

It had remained its vibrant blue during their whole ordeal, which was, the young man supposed, some relief. 

But like the longshoreman, as Dhani stared inside, he saw nothing at all. 

Perhaps that meant he was safe. 

Perhaps that meant he was one of the few in the company to be trusted. One of the few that would make it out unchanged.

Perhaps Julian, as well, by that logic.

He made a mental note to return to that last idea sometime. He and Sean were not true brothers, after all— Dhani figured there was a chance he could reap some useful information from the older man.

Next to him, George rubbed his hands together comically, trying to make light of a dark situation, if only for his son’s sake. “Alright, then, what have we got in store for the ol’—”

Of course, for there truly was no other option, was there, the looking glass changed color again, growing a scarlet orange, seemingly radiating heat like the Madras sun.

Sean shook his head.

Five colors.

There were now five separate colors he had to figure out and keep track of.

Macca furrowed his brow. “Another?” 

George did not reply, instead staring a gazeless stare into the fiery looking glass.

Concerned by his lack of response, Dhani leaned in towards him. “Father?” 

“Look,” George instructed. 

His son did as he was told.

Sean leaned in from the other side, trying to catch a glimpse of the looking glass, which was, unfortunately to no avail, as Sir Harrison’s hair, torso, and general person obscured the mirror from view.

“What do you see?” he asked.

George coughed into his handkerchief a minute, seemingly unphased by the fresh blood that appeared on the lace, and then croaked, “It is the bird.”

“You do not see yourself?” Yoko asked, tilting her head.

“Nay, I see a blue jay.”

Macca tapped his claws on the table. “Let us slow for a minute,” he began. “and review what we know so far.”

The company all turned to him, all of them agreeing without a word that it was a wise thing to do.

“Julian and I found this looking glass in Strawberry Fields,” Sean began.

Julian nodded. “And when we looked inside, we saw our father.”

“And what color was it then?” Kyoko asked.

“Violet,” they both said. 

Ringo furrowed his brow. “But when you looked inside a second time, and it was still violet, you saw nothing?”  
  
“Aye.”

“And what about when it was blue?” Macca asked.

Julian shrugged and again gave his unchanging answer. “Nothing.”

The siren acknowledged this and moved on. “Now, when it was green,” he continued, “I saw a younger version of myself.”

“As did myself, my mother, and Sean.” Kyoko added.

Yoko nodded slowly. “Although I was covered in blood…” 

“And how young were you all?” Sean asked, his eyes darting between the two women.

His mother shrugged. “Younger, I suppose? It is beyond me, really. Although my hair was still long.”

“And I was a young girl.”

“How young?” he asked again, pushing his spectacles higher up on his face. 

Kyoko thought for a moment. “Perhaps ten? I truly know not…” she paused then before continuing, “How young were you?”

“Much younger,” Sean confirmed. “Far below ten, I’m certain.” 

Macca nodded, taking in all the information. At last, he sighed. “And I was quite young as well. Not so much as you two, but… younger.” he chuckled. “I did not have such a…” he hesitated, not knowing the proper term in English. Finally, he decided upon, “wet sand face.”

Julian exhaled through his nose in amusement, although he did understand where the siren arrived at such a conclusion, considering he was translating from Naiadic.

“Naturally!” George laughed. “Oh, but… we must move on, must we not?”

“Of course,” the siren continued bashfully. “how about when it was red?”

“I had a beard.” Ringo said. “That is all.”

“And then it turned orange,” George concluded, gesturing to the looking glass. “and now I see the blue jay inside.”

A hush fell across the table.

“Is that everything?” Macca asked, growing pale. “Are we certain that is all?”

Sean crossed his arms. “As far is this company is concerned, yes.”

Dhani squinted, ever-suspicious of the man’s words.

The siren faltered. “But that— doesn’t make sense…” he whispered. “It doesn’t make any sense at all…”

Ringo’s face fell seeing his friend so distraught. “You can figure it out,” he assured. “can’t you? With Eschri’s—”

“Ringo.” Macca met his eye, his tone harsh. “I may know magical theory, but you mustn’t forget I am a matchmaker. I perform mating ceremonies, not rid this world of  _ sje’inn’a’e _ !” 

The octopus-man fell silent. 

“I suppose you are correct,” he said after a minute. 

A hush enveloped the dining room, snuffing out one of the candles. 

From the parlor, a total of seven chimes could be heard.

Sean’s eyes grew wide, his feet springing to action. “I must leave…” he declared, running towards the coat rack. “Oh… Hocke’s going to have my head for this one…”

“So soon?” Macca asked.

The young man was tying his boots in the next room. “Yes,” he laughed, terrified. “Right away, I’m afraid, lest I wish to lose my apprenticeship, and thus, my entire livelihood!”

“What are we to do with the looking glass?” Julian called.

Stumbling about to find his hat, Sean answered, “You may take it back to my house. Keep it there for now, alright?”   
The older man leaned in, unable to hear him from such an angle. “Pardon?”

“Take it back to my house!” the young man shouted.

And with that, the door shut.

Somehow, Sean left his mother’s house with more questions than answers.

George rested his hand on the table, finally bringing it down from his chin in the unbearably loud silence that remained in the dining room.

“What now?” he asked.

Julian spoke softly, like candle smoke. “I know not.”    


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Please stop making a fool of yourself.  
> (2) But Father—  
> (3) You must not be so harsh. If you would not like to hold the mirror, then tell him so like a gentleman! You know there is no need for anger.  
> (4) I expected better of you.
> 
> EDIT: EYYY WE DID IT BOIS. WE HIT THE FUNNY NUMBER IN HITS. 💯🔥😂


	29. Doomed By Rite of Birth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Julian searches for the thirty-fourth journal.

After enjoying a game of whist with Kyoko, Macca, and the elder Sir Harrison, coming out defeated by the latter two as Ringo watched, and then reading a bit of  _ A Midsummer Night’s Dream _ , Julian decided he might as well make use of his time in his stepmother’s house and resolved to seek her permission to search for his father’s thirty-fourth journal.

He found her in the kitchen preparing onion soup for the company’s lunch, chopping bread nearby the simmering broth.

She heard him enter the room; the door had been squeaking for ten years, after all. But she did not meet his eye, or even acknowledge his presence.

Not until he lingered a tad too long for her liking.

“Is there something you need?” she asked, heaving her knife into a loaf of rye.

Julian took a seat at the table, ironically the same one he had sat at in his earlier dream of John.

“Yes, actually,” he said, taking great care to speak in a level, yet gentle tone, so as to garner her persuasion.

His stepmother turned around at the sound of the chair being pulled out, the bread knife still in her hand.

In spite of her small stature, she was quite intimidating when wielding a ten-inch knife—although Julian supposed anyone would be.

He straightened his posture.

“Is this going to take a while?” the woman asked, a bit annoyed. “I’ve got soup to cook.”

“Nay, not at all.”

Yoko turned around. “Have at it, then.” And as her knife reached the table, cutting another slice away from the loaf, she added, “But you had better keep true to that.”

“I shall,” the man nodded. 

His stepmother gathered the handful of slices, about six in total, and rotated them ninety degrees. Working in stacks of three, she divided the slices into two halves, ending up with a total of twelve pieces once all was said and done.

And once all was said and done, she could not figure out for the life of her why Julian had not spoken, and so, setting down her knife and moving the slices to the side, as there were more to be cut, she said, “Well?”

Flushing, Julian responded, “Right! Yes, of course… My apologies, truly. I forgot myself.”

Reaching back for the now half-loaf, Yoko nodded. “Do go on,” she sighed.

Her stepson swallowed once, beginning, “Well, I was just about to head back to Sean’s house, although it was then that I remembered the journals.”

The old woman shut her eyes for a second. 

So that was where this was going, she thought.

“If you recall, the thirty-fourth—his final one—is missing.”

“I recall perfectly well.”

Julian drew back a bit, intimidated by the woman. “Of course,” he said, his cheeks deepening in color. “My apologies.”

“Just go on, please,” Yoko murmured.

“My— right. Well, the thirty-fourth is missing, and if I remember correctly, then you told me not long ago it may still be somewhere in this house? You said that Father lost it, no?”

Gathering another six slices of bread, his stepmother nodded. “He did, yes.”

“So, then, may I have your permission to search about the area for it? I believe it may be helpful in this whole… spectacle.”

The old woman turned around, setting down her knife and finally meeting his eyes after cutting another twelve pieces of bread. 

“Do you truly need every single one of his journals?” she asked, accusatory. “I do not understand for the life of me what business you have with all of them.”

Julian sighed. Of course she had taken the conversation in such a direction. What else would she do?

In an even tone, trying to be as rational as he could, he explained, “I believe they may be helpful in the case of the bird and its reasons for being here. Although it does not contain the prophecy, I wonder still if what my father wrote towards the end of his life may aid us any.”

Yoko crossed her arms. “And why is that, exactly? Do you still believe it was Ethelein that caused his death?”

“I would not hold him responsible, nay,” the man began. “The only person responsible is the man that killed him. But still I wonder if Ethelein played a part in it somehow— from beyond the grave, perhaps.”

“You know, I cannot just hand over everything of his to you.”

Julian sighed. “I know that very well, Yoko. But if you would please hear me out, you may understand my perspective.”

The old woman tapped her fingers against the countertop, her head slightly tilted to the left. Absentmindedly, she checked on her broth. 

It was nearly ready for the onions, she thought.

“This morning, while Sean and I were standing at Father’s grave—Strawberry Field, if you will.”

“Fields,” Yoko corrected.

“Of course. Strawberry Fields. My apologies.”

“All is well.”

Julian nodded, confirming what he knew for a fact was untrue. Nothing was ever truly  _ well _ between him and his stepmother. The atmosphere was always tense.

They had exchanged some rather harsh words in the past, particularly after John’s death.

He had always supposed it was just the concept of foreignness that got in the way of their relationship. He was not her son, she was not his mother, they were not related in any way other than being forced to. She was not even from Europe. Really, the only things they had in common were John, Sean, and, as of late, Kyoko. 

That foreignness, and the fact that she could be… difficult to work with. 

Now, what is important to understand is that their relationship had improved some since his latest arrival in New York. He had most certainly reconciled with some aspects of the woman’s personality since the last time they spoke.

But whether she did the same for him… 

He wasn’t sure.

Thus, the atmosphere between the two was always tense. 

They both expected one another to begin an argument, and ironically, because of this, both of them were always ready for such a quarrel to arise.

Neither would ever let down their guard, both were easily agitated by the other, and above all, any standard conversation between the two was not to last more than half an hour. It just wasn’t written in the stars.

“While we were there,” Julian continued with a sigh. “A revelation came upon us.”

Yoko tilted her head to the other side, shifting her weight to match. 

“I know not whether you would remember, but on the day of my father’s funeral, the two of us saw a bird. I hold steadfast to the notion of it being a pigeon, while he is certain it was a dove.”

The old woman frowned.

“As you may know, that distinction matches our interpretations of the bird that has appeared this past fortnight.”

Yoko furrowed her brow, alarmed. “So you mean to say you saw Ethelein at the funeral?”  
  
Her stepson pursed his lips. After a moment of consideration, he nodded, saying, “In essence, yes. And while it does not indicate or prove his involvement in my father’s death, it  _ does  _ provide some basis for it.” With a sigh, he concluded, “Henceforth, I ask for your permission to search for Father’s final journal— the thirty-fourth, more precisely. I believe it might contain information to support this claim, or at the very least contain information that would serve to benefit the company we seem to have assembled.” 

With this, he directed his gaze back to the old woman, who was staring at the floor, nodding slowly, and humming in agreement. 

She met his eyes briefly before turning back to her cooking, as the broth had come to a rapid boil, and responded, “In that case, you have my permission. I wish you luck.”

Julian smiled, standing up from his chair. “I thank you,” he said cordially. 

“But Julian—”

He blinked.

“Do not get yourself into anything you needn’t be getting into.”

The man faltered, unsure of what his stepmother’s words meant. His face falling, he replied, “I shan’t.”

Sunlight streamed in through the window, illuminating the table on which Yoko’s twenty-four slices of bread laid. The only sound to be heard was that of the boiling broth, now complete with the onions inside.

“So…” Julian continued. “Where was the last place you saw the journal?”

Not facing him, as she was stirring the pot, Yoko shrugged. “I never saw it,” she said. “John awoke on the morning of his death, and told me he could not find it. My God, he was on about it all day. He had a very interesting dream that night, you know. He said he wanted to write it down.”

Julian perked up. “A dream?” he asked, surprised. “Do you remember what it was about?”

The old woman set down her spoon and returned to her rye, setting the remaining half-loaf onto a tray and placing the knife in front of it. 

“He dreamt of an old friend, I believe. Stuart. I know not whether you are familiar with him… he died very long ago.” She crossed her arms. “I actually never met him, but John told me much about him. All sorts of things…”

A beat passed.

“He thought about him very often. I do not think the dream was anything especially noteworthy.”

“Oh.” The man frowned. “My apologies, I had thought—”

“No need.”

Julian stood in the doorway, unsure of what to do.

“There is a portrait of him atop the mantle, you know,” Yoko continued. “If you would like to see it, then you may go and look at it.”

“Stuart?”

She nodded.

“Well, thank you,” her stepson sighed. “Although I suppose I’ll go and… search for the journal now.”

“Naturally.”

Unfortunately, Julian’s hearing was too poor to hear the woman’s final message, a brief, but stern, “Do not forget what I said.”

_ ...As to the forms, to some of the baser sort of magicians Satan oblishes himself to appear at their calling upon him, by such a proper name which he shows unto them, either in the likeness of a dog, a Cat, an Ape, or such-like other beast; or else to answer by a voice only. The effects are to answer such demands, as concerns curing of diseases, their own particular menagerie: or such other base things as they require of him.  _

This passage in particular captured Dhani’s attention, his eyes widening and his mind racing as he glossed over the words.

He had always known that magicians could summon familiars, sprites, and imps— that was simply common knowledge. 

But he had  _ not  _ known the exact specifications of such practices. He had not known, for example, the various types of familiars, or their scope of ability as it pertained to their summoner’s desires. 

It was very useful information, he thought. 

Truly, its value to him could not be understated, for only eighteen pages into the late king’s book, he had found the evidence he needed to solve the entire mystery of the bird’s appearance.

That is to say, he knew what had caused it to appear and taunt the company.

It was a rather simple answer—one Dhani had suspected for quite some time, but not one the remainder of the company had ever seemed to consider. 

The bird, obviously, was merely a reflection of the devil. Satan cast into an avian form, if you will, for purposes only Sean could understand, because, of course,  _ he had summoned him _ .

The realization rang out in the young man’s mind like church bells.

Sean had summoned the bird. 

But why?

That was what Dhani couldn’t seem to figure out— it was the one thing. There was no doubt in his mind that the man had a reason for summoning his familiar at such a time, in fact, there  _ had  _ to have been, but what was it?

He had to take into account the precise time of the bird’s arrival. It was on the same day he and his father had stepped foot in the city, right before his father had attempted to duel the warlock’s mother—whose status as a magician, he determined, was not yet clear.

Not only that, but the one person missing from the scene—up until the exact moment the bird appeared—was Sean. If Dhani’s memory did not fail him, then the warlock had been in the captain’s quarters at the time the duel was proposed, hidden away from everyone else. 

There he could have summoned the bird, speaking in tongues to pray to the devil, or hell, even committing some unholy acts with a demon while he was away from the company’s view.

And then there was the duel itself— not the reenactment duel, the real thing. Dhani had heard the story many times from his father. 

It was a rather simple tale, one easy enough for his childish mind to understand. It had a clear hero— his father, the mutineer who so bravely stood up to the clear villain: the captain who so wickedly defied the rules written by her own hand. 

She had time and time again bent those rules for no one but herself, allowing herself to be wed to her bard while no one else was allowed to even be near a man. 

She had then immediately promoted her husband to quartermaster— the second-highest position besides her own, and conveniently, the one that got the most treasure besides her own.

Unfortunately, the captain, and subsequently her quartermaster, had won that duel. Thankfully, they had been merciful to his father, and had let him leave the scene with his life, but, contrary to popular belief, time did not heal all wounds.

The captain, Dhani thought, now the Madame Lennon, had raised a son—one not unlike himself. 

They had been raised on the same story of mutiny, albeit from two opposing views. 

And how Madame Lennon told it to her son, he wasn’t sure. But considering her previous record of bending words to fit her will, he didn’t trust it was an accurate depiction of the events that transpired that doomed day.

In their minds, perhaps Dhani’s father was the villain— a nail who stuck out and ruined an otherwise perfect system.

He was a problem that needed to be dealt with, and they were too kind to him before.

So by inviting them to their own house, in their own land, thousands upon thousands of miles away from what had become their home country, they had the high ground.

They could now safely take their revenge.

Taking all of this into consideration, it would seem very likely that the warlock was plotting against him and his father.

And although, again, Dhani had expected it, he did not expect the feelings that came along with it.

See, the idea brought many more ideas into his mind, the likes of which brought him great terror and conjured up memories he had tried for years to suppress.

His train of thought went something like this:

If Sean had been the cause of the bird’s arrival, presumably with intent to curse or otherwise injure Dhani and his father, then that led him to wonder if the warlock had also cast on his father’s illness.

Now, it did seem unlikely to him at first. After all, the two men had had next to no contact before that point.

Not to mention, Sean had never been to Madras, excluding the marriage of Dhani’s parents, which the boy and his family had attended, according to his father.

So the questions were as follows: Could a curse travel across the world and still be effective? What reason would Sean have for cursing the family Harrison? Had he also cursed Dhani’s mother? (This especially frightened him, seeing as how he could not write to her and expect the letter to arrive before he was back in Madras.)

Lastly and most horribly: Had Sean cast a curse that had led to the stabbing of Dhani’s father?

The young man breathed a long sigh. It was a vile thought, but in a strange sort of way, it came as a relief.

For far too long he had blamed himself for such events, believing himself to be possessed on account of the vivid nightmares and hallucinations he had been experiencing as of late. 

To know that it was beyond his control, held rather in the hands of a warlock that he could confront and put down…

It nearly made him cry, it was so wonderful.

Surely his father would appreciate this idea; He had been so worried about Dhani, after all, and had expressed concern several times that he would end up in a madhouse, should he not rid himself of his demons.

It would be perfectly simple to convince him he no longer blamed himself for the state of affairs around him. 

What would not be as simple would be convincing him Sean was to blame. There was no way his father would believe it, having been very close friends with the warlock's late father. 

Dhani could almost hear his voice saying the young man was not to blame.

If only his father had a little more faith in his son, he thought.

He read on.

_ The Devil will permit himself to be conjured, for the space of so many years, either in a tablet or a ring, or such like thing, which magicians may easily carry about with them.  _

He chuckled to himself.

The mirror, of course! 

Everything the company had seen; the bird, the mirror… all of it was a clever trick to imbue the devil into their everyday lives! 

He simply could not believe the rest of the company had not figured this out.

That gave him another idea, however.

It was possible that the remainder of the company was aligned with the warlock.

Madame Lennon, Madame Beckett, and Julian were all his blood relatives, after all. The chance that they were involved in this scheme was certainly not low.

And as for the mermen…

Well, put simply, their species was not civilized enough to understand the morality of magic and witchcraft. To them, it was a force for good, a blessing even. It most certainly wasn’t understood to be an instrument of the devil, as was clear to the European race.

And of course, that led him to another idea.

This time, it was the question of whether Sean’s race played into anything.

Perhaps he was raised being taught that practicing magic was not something morally wrong or evil, but was rather something to be practiced, just as the sciences.

But then, he  _ did  _ have an English father… who had died early on in the warlock’s life.

And that left him with only his mother, who of course, was from… the Far East.

Honestly, it was completely unknown if they were practicing magic there. Scholars of days gone by had written accounts of unholy practices occurring there, such as sodomy and paganism, but as for magic...

Here Dhani’s conscience began to weigh him down. Who was he to uphold such beliefs? Who was he to condemn such acts when he and his father were pagans themselves, living in the Far East and finding great company in the locals. 

Their family was more or less despised by the other European residents, who saw them for the pagans they were and treated them with about the same respect as they would a cobra.

Several times Dhani’s mother had been barred from entering a church to attend mass, being told it was on account of her associations, and many more times had Dhani felt isolated by what should have been his own people.

He shut his eyes tight.

He was no bringer of justice.

He was no witchfinder.

He was only a boy, the son of a pagan Englishman and a  _ criolla _ that decided to marry said Englishman.

He was doomed by rite of birth, cursed by his own logic to a life of suffering.

Perhaps he  _ was  _ possessed. 

Just then, providing a necessary distraction from his mind, he heard the door to the guest room open.

“Good afternoon, Father,” he sighed, setting the book on the desk in the corner of his room.

An amused, unfamiliar voice responded, “Do I appear to be your father?”

Dhani turned around with a start to find Julian in the doorway, a mischievous grin on his face.

The young man drew back, startled. 

Still smiling, Julian began, “I apologize for frightening you. ‘Twas not my intent.”

Licking his lips and blinking rapidly, Dhani said, “Of course.”

“I only wished to come in here to search for something.”

Dhani furrowed his brow. “Have you lost something?”

“Nay,” the older man sighed. “Not I, but my father. He had these journals, you see. Thirty-four of ‘em. But the last one’s lost. Yoko is of the opinion it is still somewhere in the house, so…”

“It is your intent to find it,” Dhani answered.

Julian nodded good-naturedly. “Precisely.”

And after a moment of silence, he added, “Is it alright, then, if I look in here? I can come back another time if it causes you trouble—”

“No, no,” the young man cut him off. “It is perfectly alright.”

Julian smiled, thanked him, and began searching through the closet.

Dhani, meanwhile, returned to his bed, sitting on it as he rooted through his trunk.

He needed something to do, he thought. And he wasn’t keen on reading any more  _ Daemonologie _ —not with the elder Lennon brother around. And the headache it caused him.

So, pushing aside his garments, his wallet, and a wig that he had yet to wear, its fibers all tangled and knotted to such a point he was thankful he had not yet worn it, he dug through his trunk, searching for a single book in particular.

Across the room, Julian stood, arms crossed, in front of a mostly empty closet. 

There were a few odd things inside that his father and Yoko had seemingly thrown inside for no reason, including, but not limited to: a box full of letters, (he checked—they were mostly from him, Sir Harrison and his Great Aunt Mimi, although some drawings from Macca were present) a sword, (presumably from their days as pirates) a broken old basket, and a stack of three journals, hidden away in the corner.

Curious, he pulled the top book from the stack.

Unwrapping its leather string from its cover, he opened to the first page.

Which was, to his horror, a drawing of his stepmother wearing little to nothing. 

He promptly shut the book, his cheeks glaring red like the fires of hell, likely where he deserved to be for having seen such an image.

There was a reason it was in the corner, he thought.

It deserved to be in the corner.

But there were still two other books, and he was not about to leave empty-handed.

So, swallowing his pride, and his dignity along with it, he took from the middle of the stack.

Upon opening the journal, he was relieved to see Macca’s face, the siren laying lazily on a wooden floor.

Breathing a sigh of relief, he turned to the next page.

And as luck would have it, it was another incriminating drawing of his stepmother.

Again, he slammed the book shut and resolved that if the last one was also scandalous in nature, he would scream.

But the bottom book was much worse.

For inside, he did not see his stepmother, or even his own mother, or Macca, for that matter.

He saw a man, also not wearing anything, in a rather compromising position.

Thank the Lord, it was not a man he knew, but it was still a disturbing image, considering his father had drawn it.

His cheeks beet-red, he slammed the closet doors shut.

This drew the attention of the young Sir Harrison, who looked up with lost eyes from his book.

“What was in there?” he asked.

Julian rubbed his neck as he turned around. “I beg your pardon?”

“What did you see in there?”

Meeting the young man’s eyes, he answered, “You do not want to know the answer to such a question.”

Dhani pursed his lips, a bit taken aback by the man’s flushing and dodging the question.

Julian, however, desperate to change the subject, wandered over to the desk, pulling out drawers and inspecting them as he asked, “What are you reading?”

The young man directed his gaze at his book. “ _ Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica _ .” he said.

Julian blinked rapidly. He was not expecting to be met with Latin, although, considering Dhani’s nobility, he supposed he should have.   
  
Understanding the longshoreman may not have understood, Dhani elaborated, “It is a work by Sir Isaac Newton. He was a great mathematician, you know.”

The older man nodded. “Ah,” he said. “Newton, ey?”

“Yes?”

“You are one of those newfound visionaries, then?” Julian hummed. “Those fellows obsessed with reason and matters of the natural world?”

Dhani blinked.

“You know,” the older man said, his cheeks now paling. “John Locke, Bishop Berkely, Thomas Hobbes?”

“Oh, yes,” the young man laughed. “I suppose you could call me that—although I am more concerned with the sciences. Sir Newton is without a doubt one of the most influential figures to me.”

Julian sat down on the other bed, having decided his quest for the thirty-fourth journal would be fruitless. “No kidding?”

Dhani gasped, scandalized by the mere thought. “Not at all!” he cried. “This alone I’ve read six times!”

“Six times…” the longshoreman muttered. “You know who you ought to speak to about it?”

Dhani furrowed his brow. “Who?”

“Sean.” Julian let out an insincere laugh. “That boy’s mad about Locke… you know, he ranted to me about  _ Two Treatises on Government  _ for a good two hours recently! My God, you’d think he was a necrophiliac, what with his descriptions of the man’s genius.”

The other man hummed, feigning interest in the conversation. He could not speak to Sean, be it matters of the natural world or the magical one. 

He couldn’t allow himself to fall victim to the warlock’s mind tricks.

But then… if Julian was suggesting it, he thought, did that mean that he was trying to rope him into them? 

Abruptly, and rather maniacally, Dhani blurted out, “May I ask you about your father?” 

Julian blinked, a frown crossing his face. “I suppose so…” he said slowly. “Although you should be aware that he and I were not awfully close.” 

The young man nodded. After a moment of contemplation, for he knew not how to start the conversation, he simply asked, “What was he like?”

The longshoreman let out a long hum. “He was… complicated,” he finally said, eyes downcast. “He was a very strange fellow, you know. A difficult kind of fellow.”

“Was he a kind man, do you think?”

Julian furrowed his brow. “That depends on who you ask, I’m afraid.”

The young man tilted his head.

Wagging his finger, Julian began, “The trouble with my father… is that he changed dramatically over the course of his life. You know, he married my mother, she bore me, and then he left to become a pirate without ever telling her.”

“He did?”

“He did,” the longshoreman sighed. “It was a shit thing to do, but…”

A pause.

“He did do it. And then he met Macca and Yoko. Those two probably changed him the most, if you ask me. The latter in particular.”

“But was he kind?”

Julian grunted. “Oh, hold on, boy. I’m almost there.”

“My apologies…”

The older man nodded. “Naturally,” he said. “Now, where was I?”

Before Dhani could remind him, he continued, “Ah, yes, Macca and Yoko. Oh… you know, he and my mother eventually reunited.”

This confused the young Sir Harrison. “You mean to say he went home?”

“He  _ visited  _ home. That’s when I first met him, actually. And he stayed a while… I got to go on the ship, at the very least, while it was anchored in Liverpool. And that’s where I met Macca, Ringo, your father, Yoko, Ethelein… all sorts of people.”

“You met Ethelein?” Dhani asked, surprised.

Julian hummed. “I did, although that is a story for another day.”

The wind rattled a nearby tree, crawling against the windowpane of the guest bedroom.

After a moment, the longshoreman continued, “Eventually, you know… he fell in love with Yoko. Basically ditched my mother on the spot.”

“Oh.” Dhani flushed. “I was under the assumption that she had died…”   
Julian smiled nervously. “Of course not, no! Although, yes… he no longer loved her. So he went off and wed Yoko instead.”

“While still married to your mother?” the young man asked, his brow furrowed.

“Unfortunately,” Julian sighed. “Yes. Although if it helps any, she pretended to be a widow so she could remarry.”

Dhani gaped, utterly shocked by every bit of the story.

The older man shrugged. “It was all quite horrible, yes.”

“So he wasn’t very kind then, was he?”

Julian pursed his lips. After a minute, he said, “That’s the problem. Because—arguably—he truly did love Yoko. And he loved Sean, that much is clear.” he sighed, clearly not fond of the memories coming back to him. “He was much better to him than he ever was to me.” 

Dhani said nothing. 

“But it doesn’t matter any now,” the longshoreman sighed. “Now he’s dead.”

“My deepest—”

“But we’re not. Not me or Sean or Yoko...” Julian continued, his face portraying an emotion Dhani was unsure he could even name. “We are all still here. Just— sitting in the shit he left behind.”

Summing up his position on the whole affair, he added, “He’s gone. But everything he did, for better or for worse, is still around. That never died with him… and it’s never going to.”   
The wind slowed down outside.

“It isn’t fair,” the man muttered, tapping his foot. “But then again, what is?”

There really was nothing Dhani could say to that.

Julian sighed. “Oh, that didn’t answer your question, did it?”

“No,” the young man said. “It was a good answer.”

The longshoreman met his gaze at last. “Do you think so?”

“I do, yes. It was a complicated answer to a complicated question.” 

Julian exhaled. “You could sure say that again.” 

Finally, having garnered enough exposition to ask, Dhani mustered up the courage and began, “Do you think he was a witch?”

The older man seemed a bit taken aback by the query, but he did not act so. Dhani admired him, being able to keep his emotions in check.

Slowly, he answered, “I don’t think so, no.”

“Do you think your stepmother is?”   
Julian pursed his lips. “I think the two of them were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I mean, I will be perfectly honest with you, they are by no means the pinnacle of civilization. But I do not believe that they are involved in any way with the devil, no matter what they might do.

“Sure, they may look strange, and they may act rather odd, but that does not mean they practice the dark arts. If you ask me, they are just a bit mad. 

“I suppose I understand why people think they are witches, although they’ve suffered too much because of it.”   
He paused here a moment to reflect on his own words. “Sean especially. He ne’er did anything wrong, but now because of what his parents did, everyone is afraid of him.”

Julian sighed. “Do not tell him I said this, but he is really rather lonely. No one wants to be around him. People are too scared to go near him. You know, I believe his only friends as a boy were the doves he found in the woods. And that isn’t fair. He is a perfectly nice young man. If you ask me, he’s much better than most people.”

A beat passed.

“He’s got a heart,” he concluded. “And the world’s sorely missing people that do.”

Dhani’s whole body seemed to sink into the sheets. His stomach, which felt as though it was coated with frost, dropped to his knees, his face fell to the floor.

He didn’t want to believe he was wrong.

He  _ wasn’t  _ wrong.

“Oh,” he simply said.

Just then, the door opened, and Yoko looked inside. 

“Come downstairs,” she said. “There is soup on the table.”

Julian stood up with a nod. “Certainly.”

Then, turning to Dhani, the Madame of the House elaborated, “Your father told me not to let you have any. It was made with beef broth.”

The young Sir Harrison turned to her. “That is not a problem,” he sighed. “I have lost my appetite.”

“Very well then,” she shrugged, closing the door.

As Julian turned to leave, his fingers still on the doorknob, he looked back at the young man.

“You know, Dhani,” he began. “You are a good fellow.”

Dhani wished he knew just how wrong he was. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We made it to 100K words, guys! Congratulations and thank you all for making it this far! As always, keep your wits about you, and I’ll be very excited to see you all again at Chapter 30.


	30. To Shine a Light in a Dark House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which an impromptu Sunday dinner is held.

Sean returned to his house shortly after the sunset, having had just enough time to close the bakery, walk back home in the dark, and change out of his smock before Julian stopped by, claiming he was sending for the young man on Yoko’s behalf.

According to him, he had brought the mermen by the house, and, as such, an impromptu Sunday dinner was to be held, so long as he would not mind attending.

And he did not mind at all.

It was a wonderful thing, Sean thought, to just be able to sit with the company and eat, not having to worry about any magical happenings or analyze any prophecies of old.

He was rather excited for it, really.

Until Julian ran upstairs to fetch John’s journal.

Thankfully, Sean was able to reconcile with this turn of events on the walk to his mother’s house, and was delighted to step inside and find carrot puffs on the table, accompanied by a small bowl of onion soup, a half-loaf of rye bread he had made and given to his mother the other day, a dish of mushrooms and cream, and a jugged hare—or more accurately, a jugged rabbit. 

At the table, his mother and Sir Harrison sat in their usual seats, with Yoko at the head nearer to the kitchen, and George nearer to the window. 

Moving from Yoko’s left and down, Sean could see Ringo, Kyoko, and Dhani sitting in a row.

And from George’s right and up, Macca sat by his lonesome, two invisible men filling in the empty space next to him.

“There you are,” Yoko said.

Ringo laughed next to her. “About time!” 

Taking his seat, Sean flushed, asking, “We are not late, are we?”

On his left, Julian sighed. “Not you, but I. I left too late to go find you, and now I must pay my weight in shame.”

“Quick!” George joked. “Everyone shame him!”

Always ready to defend the man, Macca scowled at his old friend. “Shame on  _ you _ !” he jeered. “You were not even awake a moment ago!”

In response, the old man shook his head and did not say anything, for he seemed to have fallen into another one of his coughing spells. It was rather violent, too, by the sounds of it. Ringo wondered if he was going to be alright.

After George had paid his dues for attempting to shame Julian, as he nearly fainted from the loss of breath and nearly vomited from the force with which he heaved, and had garnered more than enough attention from the rest of the company—Dhani in particular—he suggested that they all move on and say grace.

So grace was said by those who wished to say it, and as he waited to collect some of the strange orange fritters being passed about the table, Macca spoke.

“I suppose nothing magical has happened to any of us since Friday?” he asked, addressing everyone.

Sean sighed and pulled the looking glass, now a vibrant blue, from his jacket pocket. “Besides this?”

“Well, naturally.”

As the siren finally got a hold of the plate of fritters, and took two for himself, he was met with a resounding no.

“No dreams?”

Yoko shrugged.

Dhani shook his head.

“None that I know of,” Kyoko said. 

“No one has seen the bird as of late?”

Julian poured himself some wine. “Not since Friday.”

Sean held the mirror to the light and did not answer.

Macca began to grow a bit concerned. “Truly?” he began, his arms crossed behind his plate. “Nothing magical happened yesterday?”

“Maybe Ethelein wanted us to have a single day to ourselves,” Ringo suggested.

George chuckled at the idea, responding in a timely manner with, “Heaven knows we need it.”

Satisfied, Macca smiled without showing teeth. He had found that the humans could be a bit flustered in their presence, particularly after he had been hunting.

“Very well then,” he said, inspecting his carrot puff with his fork. “let us move onto other matters.”

Turning to Julian, he asked, “Have you brought the prophecy?”

The longshoreman nodded, chewing on his rabbit. Once he had swallowed it, he pulled the book away from his lap and shook it. 

“Wouldn’t forget it for the world,” he sighed. “ _ Couldn’t  _ forget it for the world.”

The siren laughed, although he knew that the humor was more rooted in a fundamental sadness than anything else. “I suppose so, yes.”

Opening the journal, and thus reopening his sealed away memories of the ones in the guest room closet, Julian shook his head.

“Shall we just... continue from where we were?” he asked, trying his hardest to forget what he had seen.

“Certainly.”

The rest of the table agreed, albeit begrudgingly, and so, clearing his throat, the man began, “‘He who is adorned in gold and gems will for a long time sing. He will bear many, and harbor a great deal more. History shall not forget him.’”

It was George who spoke first, suggesting, “Is it a king, perhaps? An important historical figure adorned in gold and gems?”  
  
One who bore many children, Sean thought. 

He smiled to himself before coyly asking, “Could it be the old King Charles the Second? With his many children and all?”

“What does King Charles have to do with anything?” Dhani asked, confused.

George furrowed his brow and grimaced at the baker.

“If it were any king,” the young Sir Harrison continued, “then I’d say it would be James the First.”

Although he could not contain his excitement at his brother’s remark, as he was always in the mood to poke fun at the young Sir Harrison’s less-than-noble noble lineage, Julian tried to maintain an air of normality as he asked, “Why him?”

At this Dhani arched his eyebrows. “I have my reasons…” he muttered. 

The longshoreman drew back, confused. 

“I just happen to think that James the First was an admirable man,” he continued. “He was very righteous, you know. A true man of God.”

Taking comfort in the idea that the subject had changed, and that his son was no longer in danger of receiving the damning information that he was, in fact, directly related to the very figures he spoke of, George nodded. “And that is a very righteous thing to be,” he said.

Macca frowned. “Naturally, but… what about the singing bit?”

Sinking her fork into a mushroom, Yoko suggested, “A bard, perhaps?”

“We were bards once,” Ringo added.

“So could it be one of us?” George asked. “Including John, that is?”

“It may be…” Kyoko answered. “Did you all sing, or—”

The three living bards all nodded. 

“Everyone but Ringo,” Macca said.

The octopus-man found this to be a lie. “I sang!”

“Only a few times.”  
  
George leaned in. “He did sing, Macca.”

The siren sighed, and for the first time realized that the majority of the bards ruled against him. All the remaining ones, anyway. If John was not dead, he would have agreed with him, evening out the vote to a stalemate. Oh, he longed for those days. Or for John to agree with him from the grave. Either one was fine.

“He sang a… negligible amount.” 

Kyoko, surprised that her question had sparked such a disagreement, held out her hand. “Easy,” she said. “Now, who sang the most? Would you say there was one of you that—”   
At this George audibly laughed. “Not I,” he scoffed. “Certainly not I.”

“It would have either been myself or John,” Macca frowned. “And of course, John is… no longer here, but… he was at the time this was written. It is of the utmost importance we keep him involved in this.”

Yoko nodded as she said, “I could not agree more.”

At the other end of the table, Macca added, “But I do not believe that he is who this section is referring to. After all, it did say that this person would be the bearer of many. And I suppose we can all agree that that refers to children, nay?”

The company bumbled in general agreement.

“Well,” the siren laughed. “You can very clearly see that he did not have too many.”

Sean nodded.

Next to him, Julian set down his fork. “It must be you, then,” he muttered. “It has to be.”

“I beg your pardon?”

The two made eye contact, with Sean hoisting himself as far back into his chair as he could so that they might get a better view. 

“It must be you,” Julian repeated. “I mean, think about it. You sang, and you still do of course, because you are a siren… oh, hell! Of course! You are a siren that wears a great deal of gems and metals, so that would take care of that…”

Macca furrowed his brow. “No, I have to disagree.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, I would not exactly call myself anyone of historical importance. And I already have my part in all of this, remember? Those of blue?”

Julian frowned. “Right…”

“Perhaps we should move on,” Sean suggested. “If we cannot decipher this section.”

Macca sighed. “Agreed. Julian?”

The longshoreman held up the journal. “‘His young apprentice, born to the woman of white, first of her position, will grow. It is then that his eyes will be opened and he will be consumed in the light of a star near its end—A decision he will forever regret.’”

Sean rested his head on his right hand, having lost his appetite in his confusion.

“There is a woman of white now, as well?” he asked.

Yoko nodded. “I suppose.”

“And she is the second of her position.” George added with a sigh. “So what did we agree on the first of her position being?”

Through clenched teeth Macca answered, “The ambassador of Yoko’s art project.”

This earned a long silence from Sir Harrison, who knew far better than to continue pushing subjects that involved Yoko in any way.

“No,” the old woman began. “that would not make sense…”

The siren turned to her, unsurprised.

“Make no mistake,” she said hastily. “there was more than one ambassador, but… the other was John.”

“So much for Nutopia,” Kyoko sighed. 

Next to her, the young Sir Harrison found himself apart from the company—different, in a sense, bored. He always had, of course, having been the only person among them that did not have any memories of the  _ Sgt. Pepper _ . 

Well, no, he thought. That was not entirely true, because there  _ was  _ one another person.

Though that thought did not bring him any solace. He did not want to relate himself to the witch’s son in any way whatsoever.

Acting on mere observation, he asked, “Were the two of you the only ambassadors?”

Yoko thought for a moment. Slowly, she answered, “Well… no. Although you must understand that all one must do to become an ambassador of Nutopia is declare themselves one— or at the very least believe that they are one.”

“So how many are there?” Ringo asked, tearing off pieces of his carrot puff. 

“There was myself, of course,” Yoko said. “And then John… Madame Pang, I am sure, and Mister Dwight…”

Julian finally looked up from his plate. “Madame Pang?” 

“Aye.”

“Does she still live around these parts?”

His stepmother laughed, and the longshoreman thought for a fleeting second that he should have known better than to mention her. 

“I have absolutely no idea,” she sighed. “She did as of twenty years ago.”

“You do not speak to her?” 

Yoko tossed a hand in the air, a bit annoyed. “What reason would I have to do so?”

Noticing the atmosphere was growing more tense, Macca held out his hand. 

“Could we please keep our focus on the prophecy?” he asked.

Julian muttered an apology and shifted his gaze back to what remained of his dinner.

“Thank you. Now, could Madame Pang—May, if I am not wrong—be the woman of white?”

George held out a pointed finger. “Now, that’s the thing,” he began. “The passage only mentions this woman of white in passing. If you ask me, we should be more focused on who the young apprentice is.”

Sean looked down at himself and then turned to Sir Harrison. “Well, I am a young apprentice, am I not?” he asked.

The old man furrowed his brow. “I thought you said you were the nowhere man.”

“I never said that.”

“Yes you did!” Dhani cried. “On Friday Evening, for heaven’s sake! Why must you lie?”

Sean flushed, a bit taken aback by the young man’s harsh nature. “That was only  _ speculation _ ! There is a very important difference.” Frustrated, he shook his head before continuing, “It matters not. All I meant to say was this: No matter who I am supposed to be in this prophecy, I am a baker’s apprentice. If you still believe me to be a liar, then I invite you to speak to Charles Hocke. He lives down by the Quaker Meeting House—you may ask him yourself about such matters. See what he says.”

“Boys!” Macca scolded, acting on his right to do so as the friend of both their fathers. “Please, will you just be civil to one another?”

Dhani began to interject, but the siren quickly shot him down.

“Sean, I understand your perspective,” he sighed, trying to steer the conversation back to its original position. “But I highly doubt Ethelein would mention you in this. He never even knew you.”

At this the young man grew dumbfounded. “What does it matter if he knew me?” he asked. “It  _ is _ a prophecy, isn’t it? The whole idea is to predict future events!”

The siren finally conceded. With a shake of his head, he simply shrugged and said, “I am not sure. I am not sure of anything at all—not when it comes to  _ this _ .”

He blinked.

“Perhaps I should have been more studious reading about magical history…”

“Perhaps,” Kyoko said softly. “But here again we diverge from the original subject. Julian, what else did the passage say?”

Her stepbrother shrugged. With a furrowed brow, he looked up at her and said, “I’m not sure if the rest matters.”   
She tilted her head, tucking her lips into her mouth.

Flushing, Julian explained, “I mean, first we have to figure out who the young apprentice is. But we cannot even begin to understand that until we can know who the woman of white is, seeing that she is his mother… So why bother with what he does if we know not who he is?”   
“It may still be useful,” Ringo suggested.

“Very well then,” the man sighed. “It says here that… oh, here it is, very helpful here, yes, he will  _ grow _ . And then shall open his eyes.” Here he paused a moment, stunned by the sudden contradiction of normality to fantasy. “Then he shall be consumed by a star.”

“Well that doesn’t help at all…” Yoko murmured. 

Sean nodded. “He could be any one of us.” 

“Do you suppose we should move on, then?” Macca asked, defeated.

A general agreement rang out across the table, and as Julian brought the journal to eye level, the eight all prepared themselves to hear another one of the sea witch’s unsolvable riddles.

But unbeknownst to the company, a ninth member waited outside the window, right behind George’s head, pacing on the windowsill and singing to itself, wondering if the company noticed it.

The bird wanted very badly to be let inside, you see. There was much work it had to do there, and it was always eager to see its company.

It missed the sound of their voices, the way they looked at him, and, if it was so lucky, the way they patted its head. 

But more important than its wants, as always, were its needs. 

And what it needed was… well, the company. 

It was a sort of symbiosis, you see—the bird could not exist without them, and, although they did not yet know it, they could not exist without it.

However, in front of the window, away from it company, it felt very lonely. 

It had gotten the sense long ago that its friends were all inside of the house, and so it had left its favorite spot in town, where it squabbled at passerby and attempted to eat anything it found on the street, to perch outside of the dining room window, eager to see them.

But nobody seemed to notice it was there.

Or maybe they were all just ignoring it.

That thought was not one the bird found to be especially pleasing. In fact, it created a rabbit hole in its mind, one full of twists and turns and half-truths that it had so often led itself to believe. 

It seemed to always ponder over such things, both in its old life and its new.

Or… were there more?

It couldn’t remember.

Either way, these were its questions:

Was it unwanted? Was it not good enough for its company? 

As it thought, it felt something cold growing its chest—something cold and dreadful and awful, a pain, almost, a venom, a tumor. It spread through its body like ink through water, seeping into every crevice and obscuring all rational thought.

And, stars above, how it hurt!

It made the poor bird want to lay down and die, to shrink into itself and disappear.

Its company no longer wanted it around, it thought. It had outstayed its welcome, in their eyes, and if they could, it knew they’d rather be rid of it.

They didn’t want to see it ever again.

They didn’t need it.

Oh, but they did! They had no idea what was to come, and they never could know without its help.

If it didn’t warn them, then…

The thought alone was too much for the bird to bear. 

It sank down on the windowsill, depressed like a hound without an owner.

What had it done to deserve such isolation? It had only ever been trying to help its company, and in return, they turned their backs on it.

Wallowing in its pity, the bird leaned its head against the window.

It was only then that rationality took over in a jade hue, and it realized that the curtains were drawn inside. 

They couldn’t see it—nothing more, nothing less. 

Shaking its head, disappointed in itself for having believed such things it knew were untrue, it began to peck at the window with its beak. It couldn’t imagine the company would be happy if it scratched up the glass with its talons.

And while it would still be scratched if the bird were to use its beak, the impact would be significantly smaller, and the mark would be limited to only one specific point. 

So, although it made the creature rather dizzy, it bobbed its head back and forth against the glass, its beak shut and pointed in such a way that it would tap the window a few times every second.

After a number of taps, we’ll say about five, it would pause for a couple of seconds, creating a sort of knock.

It only wished now that it could call for the company.

Julian cleared his throat before beginning, “‘The doll will vanish on an accord not of her own,’”

_ Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. _

‘“She will be broken and thrown about,”

_ Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap _ .

“‘But will someday be mended—”

Here Sir Harrison tilted his head, his lips pursed at the duality of the sounds in front of and behind him. He was an old man, you see, and so had quite a disdain for such things that competed for his attention. It seemed that as his age increased, his patience waned. 

Finally, having had enough of the insatiable tapping behind him, he held out his hand. “Just a moment, Julian,” he said.

The longshoreman turned to him in confusion, not having fully heard what George had said.

“I beg your pardon?” he asked.

_ Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap _ .

The old man’s eyes grew wild, his nerves frayed. Outstretching a hand to his son for some stability, he asked, “Am I the only person that seems to hear that horrible noise?”

“What noise?” Yoko asked from the other end of the table.

_ Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap _ .

George squeezed Dhani’s arm. “There it is again!” he cried. 

At this Dhani became very concerned. “Father, are you well?” he asked, his voice wavering. “Are you ill?”

“I am not ill!” the old man insisted. “Just listen for half a second, and you shall see—”

_ Tap, tap, tap, tap tap _ .

At this point Sir Harrison screamed in frustration. “That!” he shouted. “Am I the only one that hears that?!”

“Nay,” Kyoko frowned, swallowing a bit of her soup. “I hear it as well.”

Yoko shook her head. “It must be the Paxton children again.” 

“The ones that were tossing pebbles at the window?” Sean asked, alarmed. 

His mother nodded.

_ Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. _

The young man rolled his eyes.

“Don’t tell me they’ve come back,” he sighed.

Yoko laughed. “Oh, they’ll always come back.”

“I’m sorry,” Julian interjected, absolutely lost. “Who are they?”  
  
Sean rolled his neck to the left so that he could see the man. “The little devils that came by on Hallow’s Eve,” he explained. “Remember?”

_ Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap _ .

“With the hound?”

“Yes, them. I had to shout at them to get them to stop staring at the house.”

“They’re children,” Yoko sighed. “They cannot help wanting to see a witch on Hallow’s Eve.”

Sean flushed. “That does not mean they’ve any right to toss pebbles at the house!”

The old woman reached for her tea. “You are right, you are right…”

“Here, I shall deal with them.” 

With that, Sean pushed his chair out away from the table and stood up. With a quick step, as he was rather angry at the children for disturbing him and his mother for the fourth time in about a month, he made his way over to the door and threw it open.

Leaning out of the doorway, he turned in the direction of the window.

It was rather difficult to see in such darkness; he cursed himself for not bringing a lantern. But still, he thought he could make out about five figures in the woods.

“Do you wretches have nothing better to do,” he spat, “then to bother a poor widow on such a—”

Suddenly, he heard the fluttering of wings by his head.

Before he had time to react, the dove leaned its body down to meet him at eye level.

As Sean turned to it, absolutely stunned, it let out its signature nice-to-see-you chirp.

He just gaped.

“Sean?” Sir Harrison’s voice called with a wheeze. “Is all well?”

The young man had no response.

“Sean?”

“G-good evening, sir…”

The bird perched itself comfortably on Sean’s shoulder and nodded in acknowledgement of the greeting.

Concerned, Yoko stood up and began to walk towards the foyer. “Who is it?” she asked. “Has the magistrate returned?”

Understanding the severity of such a question, Sean turned around. “Nay, nay. Worry not, Mother.”

She finally met him in the entryway.

Her eyes widened.

“It is only the bird,” he uttered.

The raven on his shoulder chirped at Yoko.

Narrowing her eyes at it, she began in a low tone, “I did not invite you in, and I do not intend to. You have caused me nothing but trouble, and if you would have any desire not to end up next Sunday’s supper, you had best be on your way.”

The creature drew back its head, surprised by her comments. 

Sean was, needless to say, just as surprised, as was the remainder of the company, who tried their best to peer into the foyer.

“Who is it?” Macca asked, leaning into Julian.

Kyoko, having a perfect view from her seat, answered in a meek, feverish voice, “The bird has returned.”

As they spoke in the dining room, Sean’s face fell in the entryway.

“Mother…” he began.

“I will not hear it.” Yoko snapped. “Take that thing away. It shall only cause us trouble.”

The young man’s lips parted, his mind swarming with thoughts, but his mouth spoke no words as the dove moved away in a rose ambiance from his shoulder and towards the table.

Specifically, it moved towards Macca, who, upon realizing such a fact, began to shrink down in his chair, as low as he could, and repeatedly cried, “Moons and stars! Moons and stars!”

Much to the siren’s horror, the blackbird then perched atop his head and began to pull at his hair with its beak. 

He yelped in both alarm and confusion.

“Moons and stars,” he continued, “Someone get it off! Julian! Julian, get it off!  _ Ba’aba _ ?  _ Ba’aba _ —can you hear me? Get it off!” 

Julian, finally processing the siren’s words, apologized and tried to shoo the creature away from him as his brother and stepmother returned.

This was, of course, to no avail, for each time his hand drew near to the bird, it would jump to another space on Macca’s scalp and continue to pull at his hair.

He never could do it just right, it thought.

As the longshoreman came in from the left, Sean approached the bird from behind, and George from the right.

“Sir?” Sean called. “Sir? I think you’re frightening him…”

Yoko cursed in her native tongue.

Then, making everything somehow even worse, George fell into another one of his coughing fits, which, of course, frightened Dhani to no end.

He rushed over to his father, his voice panic-stricken as he begged the old man to tell him if he was alright.

Ringo offered his best suggestions, which were not exactly the best, and Kyoko just sat in stunned silence.

Finally, Julian managed to send the bird away from Macca’s head and onto the table. It landed squarely between the soup and carrot puffs, nearly singing its tail feathers in the process, but, by God, it was off of Macca’s head.

Everyone—everyone but George, anyway, who was now doubled over and hacking away as though there was no tomorrow—took a moment to breathe, and the room itself seemed to swell with their lungs.

Then Yoko spoke.

“Sean, send that thing back where it came from.”

“The Sea of Monsters?” Ringo suggested.

The old woman shut her eyes tight. “Just get it out, goddamnit!” 

Fearing for the bird’s safety, as it seemed very frightened by all the commotion, the young man scooped the dove up into his hands and began to pet it.

“He knew not what he was doing,” he whispered as the bird cooed in a lilac tone. “He shan’t cause us any more trouble.”

Macca turned to him, his face as cold as stone. 

“You know for a fact he— _ it _ will.” the siren said. “You’ve defended him long enough, love.”

“Nay! Nay, he truly shan’t!”

“You have to face reality.”

“I am!” Sean cried, his voice breaking. “If anything,  _ you  _ are the ones who aren’t!” 

Kyoko furrowed her brow. “What on Earth do you mean by tha—”

“He’s gathered us here for a reason!” The young man said, his eyes as white as marble and his cheeks flushing a cherry-red. “He  _ wants  _ us all to be here!”

“Well, we do not want him here!” Julian protested. “Think of what he has done!”

Sean directed his gaze towards the siren. “Macca—” he called, his eyes wild. “We cannot just send him away every time we see him!”

“I never said that we—“

“ _ Macca _ .” The young man’s voice was desperate. “Listen, please!”

The siren hushed. 

Pressing his thumb and index finger between his eyebrows, holding the dove in one hand, Sean began, “We have decided that the best way to be rid of the _sje’inn’a’e_ is by analyzing the sea witch Ethelein’s prophecy, have we not?”

No one spoke. Like every one of the young man’s questions, this one was rhetorical.

“So why is it, then,” he continued. “That you all feel such a great need to leave him out of this? And— and I am not saying that I fully believe Ethelein  _ is  _ the sje’inn’a’e, but…” He shook his head. “In pursuit of this demon, it is utterly hypocritical and completely nonsensical that we ignore the bird. You all want to fix things without involving him. You want to believe that you  _ can  _ fix things without him, the lot of you. But you are wrong.”

A beat passed. 

Even the bird was watching him from his hand.

“I have no idea why it is that you, calling yourselves followers of reason and of sound intelligence, would overlook this simple fact: a problem, particularly one difficult and rather time-consuming to solve,  _ cannot  _ and  _ shall not  _ ever be solved by the act of ignoring it altogether.”

The company wasn’t sure what to say to this.

They were silent, you see, because what he said was true.

It was Yoko who first realized this.

She had tried to send the bird away every time she saw it. And for what reason?

It was simple, she thought. Almost painfully so.

It was because she did not want to have to face it. She did not want to have to try and make things right. She had thought of it as a nuisance, plain and simple, which, make no mistake, it was, but… she had never even tried to interact with it. She had just tried to get it to go away.

She didn’t want confrontation of any sort—she wanted peace at the expense of the company. Because it was easier to pretend the bird didn’t exist than to reconcile with the fact that it did.

In short: lived in a dark house because she was afraid of the light. 

Her son was much smarter than she gave him credit for, she thought.

“Sean…” she spoke softly. “I—”   
He turned to her, candlelight in his eyes.

“Thank you. You made a very good point. An important point.”

He nodded without a word.

“You sound a lot like your father, you know. You speak with the same poise.”

Again, he nodded.

“It is a wonderful thing to be able to speak like that. You should be very proud to be his son—especially when you act so much like him.”

Julian thought that was a bit ironic. He never liked the way his stepmother spoke of John. She always made him out to be better than he was. She had turned him into something he  _ never _ was, essentially. 

“Thank you,” Sean muttered.

Macca turned to face the young man.

“So you are saying…” he began, puzzled. “what exactly?”

Sean sighed. “We have to at least try and work with the bird. Because if we do not, we shall never get anywhere.”

The siren nodded, his eyebrows raising as he did so.

“It is an admirable sentiment,” he said absentmindedly. 

And then, turning to the bird, who was now fluttering about in Sean’s hand, he sighed.

“I suppose we should try…”

“I do not want to work with demons,” Dhani cried frantically, interrupting the flow of conversation. “I _ will not  _ work with demons!”

“Dhani…” his father said, ever-patient with the young man. 

“Father, as a man of God, I know you shall not endorse such—”

“Dhani.”

The young Sir Harrison froze.

“We swore an oath unto this company that we would keep its interests in mind and do whatever is required of us to fulfill them.” 

He sighed.

“And seeing as how the current situation requires us to… perhaps… do some things we normally would not do—”

“You mean to say speaking to demons?”

George blinked. “Well, yes. Yes, it would seem so. But, either way, I’m afraid we must put the company’s interests before our own. Besides, it is not a demon, necessarily—it is Ethelein. He is a good friend of mine. It is a bit of a different situation.” 

Dhani’s face fell. 

He was the only person in the room that had not yet fallen into the clutches of evil.

“So,” Macca began, his eyes meeting the birds’. “What should we do with it?”

  
  
  



	31. Jades and Rubies, Sapphires and Amethysts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which questions of the mirror and the bird’s identity are explored.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y’all— I’m not gonna lie, clocking in at about 7,000 words, this one’s a doozy. So grab your popcorn, cuddle up with a blanket and some tea, and I’ll see you on the other side. (And yes, you will get a cookie)

Having taken his seat and briefly discussed the matter with the rest of the company, Sean resolved that the best way to go about interacting with the bird was to first gage its reaction to the mirror. He hoped to see what it thought of the looking glass, whether it would let them know what it was for, how to use it, and what the images inside meant.

But what instead happened, as fate was a cruel and fickle thing, was this:

He would hold out the mirror to the bird, and the bird would ignore him, completely wrapped up in its own little world.

It took a great deal of time examining the company’s faces, studying the way their eyes watched it.

It was so nice, it thought, to have their eyes on it again, to be at the center of something.

It was important for the first time in its sorry life.

And by the stars above, it loved the feeling. It was like sugar, in a sense, or alcohol. A single taste, and it wanted more. 

In essence, now that it knew what it felt like to be someone of importance, it craved that sense of affection—and its hunger was insatiable.

Sean, on the other hand, was very displeased with the bird’s ignorance, but stubbornly refused to get its attention by touch on the claim that it would become very scared and hurt the company out of fear.

Fortunately for him, however, Julian had more of a will to die than his brother, and so in a decisive move, he reached out to poke the creature, catching it in the tail feathers.

“Julian!” Macca cried.

The man mumbled his apologies purely out of instinct. In all truth, he was not sorry, for it seemed that he had finally gotten the creature’s attention.

It flinched, but did not seem afraid of his touch, in fact, it seemed to quite like it. 

Turning around slowly, it cooed for him. 

And it was only then that the bird noticed the looking glass in front of Sean, gleaming a deep amethyst in the candlelight.

With a cautious step, it tilted its head and hopped over to the mirror, walking around the soup and in between various other dishes and platters until at last, it was satisfied with its position.

Now, although the bird was the only one to truly understand the magnificent power of the thing, it did not dare look inside. 

This was because, plain and simple, it wasn’t sure what it would see inside.

As its mind barrel-rolled and turned to jade, it came to the conclusion that it most likely wouldn’t see itself.

But that’s not to say it wouldn’t see anything, at least in its own mind.

“It is green now…” Macca muttered, peering in to see himself as a younger man.

Sean sighed and turned away from the boy facing him. “I suppose.”

Then, drawing his attention to the dove, he asked, “Do you know what this is for? Or why you gave it to us?”

Meeting his gaze, the dove nodded.

“So what is it, then?” the siren butted in.

The bird took a step back. It didn’t know how to answer that.

So, doing the only rational thing it could—

Its mind turned to sapphire.

In an instant, it backed away from the young man.

Its head turned every which way, across faces both familiar and new, searching.

It had to find him, it thought.

It had to make sure he was alright.

Sean faltered. “Oh— well, it’s blue now…”

His hands slamming against the tablecloth, his eyes wide and his mouth agape in realization, Macca demanded, “Hand it to me.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It must be those of blue!” the siren cried. “Julian— you did not see anything inside when it was blue, did you?”

With a furrowed brow, the longshoreman answered, “No. Listen, just because it’s blue—”

Finally, the bird spotted him. 

Lifting himself into the air, he dived towards the octopus-man.

Ringo reached out a hand to Kyoko for support, alarmed by the seagull’s sudden attack, but was then blindsided by the frenzy of white feathers whizzing towards him at an unprecedented speed.

He felt the bird’s talons on his shoulder, its stubby neck brushing back and forth against his, either in an attempt to strangle him or show him affection. He wasn’t sure which.

His tentacles grew a deep black.

He was too scared to move.

The company was too scared to speak.

“Ringo…” George finally whispered. 

“No,” the octopus-man interjected. 

“Are you alright?”

“No.”

Dhani’s eyebrows sank on his face. “What is it doing?” he asked.

In a low, barely audible voice, Ringo responded, “I wish to the stars I knew.” 

Sean turned to Macca. “Is it trying to hurt him?” 

The siren hesitated. It certainly didn’t seem that the bird had any malicious intent. In fact, it seemed rather friendly, just nuzzling Ringo’s neck and chirping away.

It repeated the same sound over and over again, a jumble of syllables that almost sounded like speech.

“ _ Ingho _ !” it cooed. “ _ Ingho _ !”

“ _ Viti’i Naiadica _ ?” Julian asked in a hushed tone, leaning into Macca. “Is it Naiadic?”

The siren said nothing.

“ _ Ingho _ !”

“ _ Feina triz’i ang _ ?” The longshoreman continued. “What does it mean?”

Shaking his head, Macca began, “ _ Dar’ia _ . Nothing.” 

“Is it not—”

“No.”

Slowly beginning to accept the bird’s affection, Ringo said, “I believe it is trying to say my name.” 

“Can it say ours?” Yoko asked, intrigued.

Macca pursed his lips. “I know not...but…”

“Do you want him to have this, sir?” Sean asked softly, handing the looking glass across the table to Ringo.

The bird said nothing, but the octopus-man graciously accepted the mirror, and, made curious by Macca’s earlier comments, he looked inside.

“What do you see?” the siren asked slowly.

Ringo tilted his head every which way. “I see myself.”

“Are you younger?”

“Oh, most certainly.”

“By how much?” Kyoko asked.

The cecaelia thought for a moment. Cautiously, he answered, “I’ve a beard again… and I just… you know! I just seem younger! I have less of a wet sand face.”

Dhani snickered, providing a welcome burst of positivity for the company.

“What on earth is a wet sand face?” he jeered.

“He means wrinkles,” Julian explained. “It just happens to translate to wet sand face in their native tongue— _ Isra-yaff ha’aba _ .”

George nodded with a smile, pleased to see his son returning to his usual light-hearted ways.

“Exactly,” Ringo said. “That. I am a bit younger.”

“And what if you were to hold it out to the bird?” Sean asked excitedly. “Would that reveal its identity to us?” 

At such a prospect the company became very excited. It seemed rather obvious, in their minds, that the bird’s reasoning for giving them the looking glass would be for their benefit. After all, the greatest mystery (to a select few) of the whole ordeal was who exactly the creature was.

With a cautious hand, Ringo extended the mirror towards his shoulder.

Macca was absolutely certain his friend would see Ethelein inside. Though he was no magician, he did know a good deal of magical theory—or at least enough to understand the basic idea of sje’inn’a’e. 

And all of the evidence gathered so far pointed to this conclusion, at least in his mind.

First there was the form of the creature, a bird of a different color and shape to all who saw it. 

Its various apparitions matched those of Ethelein’s—a blackbird to him, a blue jay to George, and a seabird to Ringo. Of course, Dhani and Sean proved an exception to this rule, seeing as how they had never met Ethelein, but in the grand scheme of things, such a fact was negligible.

Then there were the dreams—the visions completely and solely characterized by the demons, the re-experiencing of a particular memory with a single changed detail.

And although the siren was not exactly pleased by the consequences of focusing on such a detail, they were beyond any doubt real.

Julian had been thrown in the river.

Yoko had dreamed of John’s murder.

But then there was Sean. And Julian along with him.

They had both described having magical dreams of some nature, which the older man had earlier revealed to the siren involved an empty city and a bowl of strawberries on every tabletop.

If anything, that was the exception to the rule. It was the one thing Macca couldn’t seem to grasp.

There was so much wrong with the dream in comparison to the others. The largest of which being the fact that it wasn’t a memory. And because of that, no details should have been changed.

But they were! There was no one in the city, to begin with, and according to the longshoreman, there was a bowl of strawberries on every tabletop—which Julian had specifically interacted with.

So why had nothing happened?

It couldn’t have been that the dreams weren’t magical, because they very clearly were. They had led to the discovery of the looking glass, another object which was, again, very clearly magical.

Unless the looking glass was the consequence of Julian’s interactions.

The siren simply furrowed his brow. If that were the case, he thought, then it was far too late to try and stop anything.

Next to him, Sean had his own ideas about the bird.

Empirical support for his claim that the dove was John was admittedly dwindling, especially when compared to the heap of evidence pointing to the bird being Ethelein, but still, he could not bring himself to believe it was not true.

The dove he had seen at his father’s funeral was now right in front of him, alive even twenty years later! He had to have shown up on that specific day for a reason.

It had been the dead of winter, after all. 

No doves stayed in New York for the winter.

Not unless they were actually spirits of some type.

Not to mention, when he had last visited Strawberry Fields with Julian on Friday, they had seen their father staring back at them in the looking glass.

Even if such a result could no longer be achieved, he thought, it had happened once.

And once was enough, at least to him.

It was predetermined to the baker— the dove in the rosebox was John.

Julian, although he hadn’t thought about it much, for such ideas were rather confrontational to him, and he had never been a very confrontational man, was also beginning to buy into Sean’s theory.

Maybe it was just because he had spent so much time with the young man as of late, but his evidence was rather compelling, considering he had also been at John’s grave that morning.

Oh, but the thought hurt his head.

He had always been indecisive, and this was only exacerbated when it came time to choose a theory. He just felt as though he was choosing between Macca and Sean—a choice he knew he could never make.

Dhani was no longer sure what to believe.

It was extremely tempting to assume that the bird was a familiar of Sean’s, an imp of sorts, and that the young man was therefore a warlock, being the son of two necromancers.

Still, he was hesitant to believe it after his conversation with Julian.

If you recall, he had declared Sean as, in his own words, ‘having a heart’.

It wasn’t exactly hard for Dhani to see his logic, either. The man was just like him.

He had read the works of Newton and Locke, had suffered unjustly because of his birth affiliations, and had never been a man of great social renown. 

So what was the difference between them?

It certainly wasn’t their hearts, for if the heart was determined by resilience, then they were one in the same—they were both the witnesses of attempted (and once successful) murders. And both of them, in their own unique ways, would have liked to believe they had bounced back from such a trauma, therefore, both were resilient.

For Sean, that meant being all that remained of his father.

And for Dhani, that meant being all that he could be for his. 

As much as the young Sir Harrison loathed to admit it, it was something they had in common. 

They both had hearts, figuratively speaking. So the difference between them must have laid in their souls.

Sean’s, in Dhani’s mind, was black, a cold sort of thing riddled with demonic energy, seeing as how he had handed it over to the devil in exchange for his powers.

And Dhani’s was…

He frowned.

It was riddled with demonic energy, seeing as how it was in the possession of demons.

Or was it?!

It seemed he could no longer be sure of anything his mind told him.

He would have to consult a priest sometime, he thought.

Next to him sat Kyoko, who, by such a point, almost wanted the bird to be John.

It was a rather difficult conclusion to come to, but upon visiting her own grave, she was reminded of the life she once had as his stepdaughter. 

Although she had been extremely distraught over her parents’ lack of love for one another, and couldn’t stand being treated as an asset to be fought over between the two, she had loved her mother a great deal.

And she had practically grown up on her ship, even if in hindsight it was not a proper environment for a child to be raised in. 

She had always known the crew, from the gunners to the boatswains, and even down to the bards.

So John had never been a stranger to her.

But he was a stranger in the sense that she had never seen him as a father figure. Nor did he see her as a daughter.

On the ship, they simply did not have enough time to develop that sort of a relationship.

But then, all of a sudden, they were on dry land in New York.

And just as the two began to get to know one another, at the most inopportune possible time, she had left. 

And as fate was blind to human suffering, upon her return, he had been dead for years.

It wasn’t fair, she thought, that the two of them had never gotten the chance to develop a relationship.

She had always blamed herself for leaving, citing every excuse under the sun and more, but as she grew older, she began to realize that she was wrong.

And while she did not wish to place the blame on her father, no matter how much he may have deserved it, he was ultimately responsible for her lack of a relationship with John.

Now, that may all seem irrelevant, but consider this:

With the arrival of the bird, she may have had a chance, albeit a rather small one, to try and reconnect with her stepfather.

So if the opportunity was there, she wondered, why couldn’t she bring herself to take it?

She supposed she was simply not as bold as Sean in that regard.

Her mother, on the other hand, prayed to God that the bird was not John.

It seemed hypocritical to her at first, but the more she thought about it, the more sense it made.

Although she would normally claim the opposite, she had rebuilt her life from John’s ashes, and, after twenty years, she could finally say that she had really,  _ truly _ moved on.

So to have to see him again acted on her fear of reverting back to where she was—where she had been in her pitch-black house, sitting in her bed and paying no mind to her son.

As she had put it long ago, it was the winter. She did not want to return to such a time, especially not in the same way she had on that dreadful day.

For the sake of her own sanity, she hoped the raven at her table was Ethelein. Because she wasn’t sure what she would do if it wasn't.

Opposite her, George did not feel strongly about the subject. 

He did not believe the identity of the bird was nearly as grave an issue as the others (particularly Sean) had made it out to be.

No, Sean had just conjured up such a controversy. 

No one would be arguing about it, after all, if he had not disputed Macca’s claim of the creature being Ethelein.

It was without a doubt true that the bird’s identity was interesting, but much more pressing, at least in George’s mind, was the sea witch’s prophecy.

It was grim.

It was bleak.

It foretold events likely tragic that the company could only speculate on.

Here he finally realized the reasoning behind the fascination with identity—it was a welcome distraction from the misty outlook of the prophecy.

But what set Sir Harrison apart from the rest of them was one simple, undeniable fact.

His death was swiftly approaching him.

In a horrible sort of way, he had a perfect escape from the events unfolding around him already planned.

It didn’t matter to him who the bird was, or what it wanted, or even what its prophecy meant. 

Because in the blink of an eye, he’d be as far removed from the situation as John was.

In the blink of an eye, he’d be dead.

But such a way of thinking was very unlike him. It was cold, it was plain, it was rather Machiavellian, even.

Because it did not take into account his love for the company.

It did not matter what the prophet proclaimed would befall George, because he would soon be dead. But it did matter what he proclaimed would befall his son and friends.

He would sooner die one thousand times than to see any of them die but once.

It had torn his heart out to see John killed, no matter their disagreements. And if he could at all control such a thing, he would never see that again.

Lastly, there was Ringo.

And for him, there was nothing that could be done but to find out the bird’s identity for himself.

So it was with great caution and no further ado that he peered into the sapphire looking glass.

His face fell.

“What is it?” Macca demanded. “What do you see?”

The octopus-man swallowed. 

“I do not see anything.” 

Sean sighed, somehow disappointed, although he truly should have known better. 

Julian simply nodded and hummed.

Dhani went for a sip of his wine, and was immeasurably disappointed to find next to no liquid inside. He was going to need more if he ever wanted to make it back to Madras.

Planted firmly in her seat, Kyoko picked at her mushrooms. It was worth a shot, she thought, even if it didn’t work out in the end. 

Yoko leaned back in her chair. “Well, in that case,” she began. “Can it at least say the rest of our names?”

George put a hand to his chin. “I’m afraid that that is a question for it.”

Understanding where the conversation was now heading, Ringo held out his hand to the bird with the intent to bring it closer to the table’s center.

Much to his surprise, however, the seagull did not hop onto his hand.

Instead, it held out one of its feet, and without even looking at the octopus-man, latched its single foot onto his hand.

“What is it doing?” Dhani asked, confused.

“Something evil,” Yoko muttered.

Ringo simply smiled nervously. “You are going to have to put your other foot on there,” he said. 

At this the bird turned to him and finally met his eyes. 

“Please?” Ringo begged.

Nearly losing its balance in the process, the creature did as it was told.

For the first time in its life, Julian thought.

“Alright!” the octopus-man began, his tentacles growing a pleasant gold. “Now, when I point to someone, I’ll have you say their name.”

The bird nodded, and the company all drew closer.

Ringo wasn’t exactly sure where to start, and so decided to just go from left to right, beginning with the ever-reliable Sir Harrison.

“Who is that?” he asked, pointing a tentacle in the taxman’s direction.

The bird squinted. “ _ Jio _ .”

“Jo?” Kyoko asked, unable to decipher the crane’s speech.

“ _ Jio _ .”

“I think it’s trying to say George…” Macca murmured.

Julian cocked an eyebrow. “Do you think?”

The old man in question just shrugged. “It’s close enough for me.”

“Should I move on, then?” Ringo asked with a frown.

Yoko let out a low whistle. “I mean, was he truly correct?”

“It matters not whether he is correct,” Sean answered. “What matters is whether he even recognizes us.”

“Why wouldn't he?” Julian asked.

The young man pushed his spectacles higher up on the bridge of his nose, preparing his answer, when all of a sudden, Kyoko answered for him.

“Well, if it is Ethelein,” she began. “Then it would have no way of knowing who Sean and Dhani are.” 

“I’m not sure…” Macca sighed. “They look an awful lot like their fathers, you know. Ethelein could confuse them, I’m sure, in such a state.”

Sean turned his eyes towards the table. 

Such was his curse, he thought.

Then, providing a much-needed change of the subject, George held out his finger. “More importantly,” he said, “Will it recognize us at such an old age?”

“It recognizes you,” Ringo noted.

Sir Harrison grumbled in agreement.

Interrupting his vague response, however, was Julian, who suggested, “Why don’t we just try it? If it recognizes Sean and Dhani, it might not be Ethelein. If it does….”

“It’s worth a try,” Macca sighed.

Yoko set her tea onto the table. “Everything is worth a try,” she said.

“Exactly!” the longshoreman piped up. “Now, Ringo, if you would?” 

The octopus-man nodded, and then, as he looked around the table, began to frown. 

“Who should I…”

“Oh, I’ll do it,” Sean said, shaking his head. “Now let’s just get on with it!”

The bird chirped in general agreement.

Looking down upon its little body, perched keenly at the end of his hand, Ringo softened his tone as he began, “Alright, who is that?” 

The seagull tilted its head all around, its beady black eyes shining in the light, and after a solid minute, simply turned to Ringo and shook his head. 

Macca furrowed his brow, his fork hanging loosely in between his fingers. “So… he doesn’t recognize him?” he asked.

“I’m not sure…” Ringo responded absentmindedly. 

Sean tilted his head. “Does that mean for sure that the bird is Ethelein, then?”

Macca sighed. “It’s possible…”

And just then, atop Ringo’s hand in the dining room, the bird changed entirely, its mind being deconstructed, as it so often was, and rebuilt in ruby.

In accord with this change, it became much more self aware, and turned around to see the octopus-man staring at it. 

What was he doing there, it wondered. 

Oh, that didn’t matter so much as some of its other priorities. 

As some of the company debated the nature of the bird’s actions, and others simply stuck to their supper, the creature fluttered its wings.

This, needless to say, caught everyone’s attention, but not so much the change in the mirror, which seemed noticeable only to Ringo.

It was now a bright red, the same as it had been when he had seen it on Friday morning, and in it he could see himself with a beard. 

Diagonal from this very peculiar happening, however, was a less peculiar, much more frightening happening. For the bird, in its infinite need to cause mayhem, seemed to have made a pilgrimage back to the top of Macca’s head.

There it stood, just the same way it had before, picking at pieces of the siren’s hair with its beak.

It couldn’t believe it! It had left him alone for only half an hour, and already he had managed to undo all of its work!

Oh, he had made it even worse than before, it thought.

Macca, on the other hand, thought the bird was violating his cherished concept of personal space. 

But unlike the first time it had done so, he managed to keep his composure. He was frightened, of course, terrified, even, but… it was different the second time. He was sort of expecting it.

“Again?” Kyoko asked, confused.

The siren sighed unevenly. “If it has returned to do this a second time, then it must be very determined.” 

“Maybe it does not like your hair,” Yoko suggested, adding absolutely nothing to the conversation.

The siren shrugged, supposing that must have been true, at least to a certain extent. 

And just as he raised his hand to shoo the blackbird away, Ringo spoke.

“The looking glass…” he murmured. “It has changed again.”

The company turned to him.

“It is red,” Yoko observed.

Sean raised his eyebrows, his mouth becoming dry at the sight. “What can you see inside?” he asked, desperate for an answer.

The octopus-man sighed. “It’s just the same as I saw before,” he said. “Where I have a beard.” 

Kyoko sat straight up in her chair, her brow furrowed, her forehead wrinkled, and her eyes searching.

As questions for Ringo and the bird spewed forth from every mouth, she seemed to be the only one able to provide a single, overarching, all-encompassing answer. 

Or—perhaps more accurately—a single, overarching, all-encompassing suggestion. A simple observation, of you will.

She spoke slowly.

“There must be some sort of pattern…” she said, attracting the attention of all but George and Dhani, who were too busy wheezing and comforting one another to listen to what she had to say. 

“Something to do with the colors of the mirror,” she elaborated. “And what we see inside.”

“And what would such a pattern be?” Sir Harrison asked through his coughing. 

Dhani rushed to his side, warning him not to overexert himself in such a state. 

“I suppose we must figure that out on our own,” Kyoko sighed. “What we ought to do is choose a color to focus on, and observe what each of us see inside.”

Macca nodded slowly, careful not to disturb the demon on his scalp.

“Very well then…” he said. “Which color should we use?”

Ringo turned to look at the mirror, still in its bright red state.

It was the color of strawberries, he thought, or hot monkberry jam. 

“Why not red?” he asked, turning back to the company.

No one seemed to disagree with the notion, and they all resorted to their usual bumbling, but in the same respect, no one seemed to agree with the notion either.

Until Kyoko spoke up, anyway, saying, “Red will suffice.” 

And, seeing that she was the original proponent of the idea, her voice, and thus her ruling along with it, seemed to possess more power than anyone else’s.

So the company was bound to agree with her, although they really didn’t have any reason to disagree. They couldn’t seem to control the mirror’s color, after all—at least not yet. 

So it seemed a resolution had been reached, and Ringo wasted no time handing the looking glass to Kyoko.

She spent a single minute in the company’s awaiting silence before saying, “I see myself as a young girl… the same as I did when it was green.” 

“Again?” Yoko asked, her brow furrowed. 

She nodded and passed the mirror to her left.

Dhani was a bit anxious holding the thing; he did not want to associate himself with magic, after all, but he was relieved to see nothing inside. 

He was two for two—safe, at least for the time being.

Smiling a pleased smile to himself, he announced, “I see nothing.” 

With that, he handed the looking glass over to his father. 

And here a very strange thing happened.

You see, while the mirror was still red in George’s hands, as soon as his eyes fell upon it, it became as orange as the carrot puff on his plate.

The bird froze in place, its mind fading into total obscurity as its eyes locked onto the looking glass.

Ringo’s face fell. “Really?” he asked. “It had to change now?”

“I suppose so,” George sighed. “Now, inside I see the bird—just the same as before.”

“Should we even bother—”

Kyoko cut him off, her hand on her chin as she sighed, “I suppose we may as well continue. There’s no use abandoning the plan now.” 

George nodded, having no choice but to agree with the woman, but right before he handed the sea glass to Macca, Sean held out his hand.

“Wait just one moment, Sir Harrison,” he said, pushing his spectacles higher upon his nose with his middle finger. “You said you saw the bird inside?”

The old man was a bit drawn aback by the question, and so was slow to respond, “I did, yes.”

Julian sat back in his chair, his brow furrowed. Either Sir Harrison was lying, or something was very, very wrong.

For from the longshoreman’s angle, he could see the other side of the mirror—and for once, it wasn’t empty.

“So why can I see you inside?” Sean continued.

George was, needless to say, extremely confused by such a question. Just as he cast his eyes down towards the mirror, attempting to confirm to himself that he truly did see the bird, the blue jay in question flew off of Macca’s head and in front of the looking glass, its eyes wide.

And what was most unusual about this was that as the bird drew nearer to the vermillion sea glass, the image of George became larger and larger.

The bird was, at last, able to see something inside—a prospect exciting only to those willing to break their oath and betray Sir Harrison.

For if the bird saw him, then it would seem a fourth candidate for its identity had been uncovered—the taxman himself.

And such information in such trying times was damning to both his reputation and the company’s trust in him.

“I see the bird,” he defended. “Ask Dhani if you do not believe me.” 

“On your end, perhaps…” Yoko muttered. 

At this George became very reactive, his cheeks flushing, for he knew far better than to accept accusations from the likes of her.

“Well, what do you see, then?” he asked, his tone a bit louder than it needed to be.

“Sir Harrison—” Kyoko began.

“Do not  _ sir _ me, girl! I’ve known you longer than you could ever hope to remember!”

“George!” Yoko scolded. 

Macca tilted his head, his eyes disappointed as he said, “There is no need to be so angry.” 

“I apologize,” George sighed, a cough escaping him on the final syllable. “I apologize…”

“Carry on Kyoko,” Yoko said, turning to her daughter.

The woman nodded, a light blush caressing her cheeks as she continued, “Sir Harrison—George. I know not how to tell you this, but… when the bird peers into the mirror, at least when it is orange, it sees you.”

“Are you implying that—”

“Not implying, sir,” Kyoko explained. “although it is a noteworthy observation.”

Dhani was now at a loss for words.

If the bird saw his father when it stared in the mirror, and thus there was a chance he was in control of the bird...

What did that mean for him?

And even more chilling, did that mean that the man in his house that last December, the one who had screamed that he was a witch that had possessed him and deserved death… was right?

He felt nauseous.

“But what could it mean?” Macca asked, tilting his head away from the creature.

In a hoarse whisper, Dhani suggested, “We had best move on.”

And although there were a million questions still to be asked about the subject, Sean quickly came to the realization that no answers were to be received at the time. 

With a sigh, he said, “Macca’s turn, then?”

George nodded, and with faltered breath passed the mirror to the siren.

In front of him, the bird did not move, its eyes glassy and its joints stiff.

Fortunately enough, however, as Macca’s gaze fell upon the looking glass, the color changed again to a rose red, and the bird regained its ruby consciousness, fluttering up into the sky to perch atop its favorite siren’s head.

“What do you see now?” Kyoko asked, inquisitive.

Macca blinked, his brow furrowing. 

He didn’t look any older or younger, necessarily. His hair looked the same, his face was clean-shaven as ever, and the apt description of having a ‘wet sand face’ was as appropriate as ever. 

Not turning away from himself in the looking glass, he answered, “I look exactly the same.” 

Eager to toy around with the thing, Sean seized his opportunity to lean in, asking, “Then, is it my turn?”

With a sigh, the siren handed the mirror to him.

“I suppose so,” he said. 

The young man’s eyes lit up as he felt the cool sea glass pressing against his palm, its strawberry surface gleaming in the light. 

He wondered for a moment if the color red was a kind of connection having to do with the strawberries on his wall, a prospect which only served to excite him further, even if it was a rabbit hole that ultimately led nowhere.

Now, with all this excitement, this calamity if you will, this hullabaloo, the likes of which I sincerely hope you have experienced for yourself at some point, Sean was very disappointed at what he saw—or rather, what he did not see.

“I see nothing,” he sighed, his face deflating and his eyes dimming.

His fingers tapping on the table, as he had finished his supper long ago, Julian nodded. 

“I suppose I’ll be taking that, then, won’t I?” he asked dryly.

Sean nodded and mumbled something unintelligible.

And as he held the sea glass loosely in his hand, about to hand it over to his brother, disappointed by its lack of favorable results, the bird jumped up, away from Macca’s head.

Its mind, and thus the mirror, turned to amethyst.

And the looking glass, caught in between the baker and the longshoreman, showed the only thing it could show. 

Julian’s face went pale, while Sean’s fell slack.

“God almighty!” he cried, frantically running a hand through his hair. “He’s  _ back _ !”

Next to either one of the men, Yoko and Macca were quick to lean in, trying in vain to catch a glimpse of whoever it was they saw.

“Who is it?” Macca asked, craning his neck over Sean’s shoulder. 

“Is it someone bad?” 

Julian laughed in what could only be described as sheer and unbridled terror. Without considering the potential consequences, he scoffed, “Depends who you ask.”

Finally, after having to physically pull back Sean’s hair, Macca gasped.

“It’s  _ John _ ,” he stammered, falling back in his seat.

Sir Harrison, caught up in one of his spells, managed to wheeze out, “What?”

“It’s John!” the siren repeated. “They see John!”

Yoko’s face fell. “Which one of them?”

“I’m not sure…” Sean murmured. 

Julian pressed his thumb against the mirror. “Here, just give it to me.”

Now,  _ give _ is a bit of a generous way to describe what Sean did—or really, didn’t do. He was in such a state of shock, you see, that he could not bring himself to hand over the looking glass.

Instead, Julian had to  _ take  _ it from him, and was lucky to encounter no resistance to such an action.

Once the mirror was in his sole possession, he studied it very carefully, taking note of its exact color, intensity, and shape.

And how the bird was watching him.

What he could not take note of however, was any trace of an image inside.

“I don’t understand,” he said, passing the sea glass back to Sean. “He was right there.”

“He is still here,” the baker muttered, his eyes transfixed on the object. “If only for a brief moment.” 

“What on Earth do you mean?” 

As he stared into the cool green glass, he answered, “He isn’t there when you look inside, nor is he there when I do so. But if we both look,” Here he took a moment to bring the mirror in between them. “Well, there he is.”

“What does he look like, exactly?” Kyoko asked. 

Julian sighed. “Younger… like when I was a boy.” 

“Like in the portrait in the parlor?” Yoko piped up.

“Of your wedding?”

“Yes.”

The longshoreman thought for a moment. “Nay,” he finally said. “He doesn’t yet have a beard. I would have been very young, I think.” 

George cleared his throat. “But old enough to remember?” 

“Certainly.” He paused. “Yes, I’m sure of it. I have seen him like this before.” 

Yoko stood up. “May I see?” she asked, her voice cracking.

Her stepson nodded wordlessly as the floorboards creaked beneath her feet. 

The old woman took a deep breath. She wasn’t completely sure what to expect in regards to seeing her dead husband again.

Was it a foolish thing to be afraid of? She saw him all the time in her dreams, saw him in paintings and drawings, but…It seemed to be different when a demonic bird was involved. 

She stared into the eyes of the dead.

They were cold, she thought, but oddly enough, not lifeless.

It was uncanny. 

“Well,” she began. “his hair is rather short.” 

“That it is,” Julian answered. 

She cocked her head. “And he has side-whiskers.”

Her stepson hummed.

“Does he look like he did on the ship?” Ringo asked across the table. 

“Aye, he does.” 

“But before he was married to you?” Kyoko asked. 

Yoko nodded.

“So this… _ image _ ,” Julian began. “Would have to be before…”

“Seventeen-hundred and nine,” the old woman answered. 

The company fell silent.

“I just do not understand why it is so significant,” she continued. “Why then?” 

Sean sighed. “I’m afraid that is a question for the bird.” 

And then, looking up at the dove, he frowned. 

“Could you tell us what it is for, sir?” he asked. 

The bird cocked its head. 

“The looking glass,” he specified.

At this the creature seemed to understand, and nodded its head in confirmation. 

Then, with a carefully planned step, placing one foot in front of the other, it walked a number of inches around Sean’s plate and picked up his fork in its beak.

The baker furrowed his brow, confused. But he was even more confused when the dove then walked towards him, holding the cutlery out to him. 

“Would you like me to take this, sir?” 

The creature nodded, and hesitantly, Sean did as he was instructed, holding the fork awkwardly in his hand, its shape suddenly confusing and clunky in his fingers. 

“Does he want you to eat?” Julian asked.

The younger man hushed him.

In front of him, the dove bent its neck so that its beak touched its chest. And once it had done so, it turned to look Sean in the eyes.

“I do not understand, sir.”

Again, it let its beak touch its chest.

Sean’s eyes wandered over to the fork in his hand.

The bird poked at its body one more time, and it was only then that the baker understood.

His pupils grew small as he cried, “You want me to place the fork in your chest? To stab you?” 

This caused quite an uproar amongst the company, but not so much for the dove, who simply nodded.

“I- I cannot!”

It squawked at him and tilted its head.

“I cannot do such a thing! Not to you, sir!”

At this, the bird actually laughed, tossing its head back in great maniacal amusement. 

“I truly cannot!” Sean cried. “I cannot hurt a dove! I could never!” 

“Perhaps it should leave now…” Macca muttered. 

“But he just got here!”

The siren sternly met the man’s gaze. “But he is trying to get you to stab him.”

“We haven’t even learned anything from him!”

“I think we have learned plenty. Everything we need to know, anyway.”

Sean’s face fell.

It was on that night that he realized he would have to take matters into his own hands.

He couldn’t fully trust the company to rationalize with the bird.

He would have to do it himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well done! 🍪


	32. The Grave of Zadjra Yedl (And The Figurative Grave of Rette Badinatta)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ringo dreams of Agratsch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t worry this one is shorter

As soon as Ringo closed his eyes, he found himself in warmer water.

The ease with which he was able to move through the sea was astonishing to him; it was as though he was young again, a simple serf traveling through the great unknown.

The world had seemed so vast to him back then, having never truly left his mother’s farm. There were languages he had never heard, creatures he had never seen, whole worlds he had never explored. 

Including, as he quickly realized in his dream, Agratsch, or as he had called it in English—the Crab Colony. 

He was back in Agratsch!

Surrounded on all sides by massive shells and creatures of every size, shape, color and type, the cries of peddlers selling shells and copper rang out, filling the octopus-man with a wonder he hadn’t felt in ages.

He was really back in Agratsch, he thought.

It made him want to cry tears of joy. 

He was  _ back _ .

Before he had the chance to process anything, he heard someone speak to him. 

“There you are!” the voice said with a familiar stutter. “I apologize for being late—I nearly lost you, you know. I- I was on the whole other side of the garden.”

The garden?

All the color drained from Ringo’s face, his fingers going numb and cold.

He turned his head very slowly, for fear of what he may see.

As his eyes fell upon the crab he wanted to sob. 

“Rette—”

The other man laughed. “Don’t worry about it!” he said, swatting Ringo in the stomach. “Come on—I promise it’ll make sense later.” 

The cecaelia took a step back as Rette grabbed his arm.

Could it be that he was addressing him?

Or was it all a trick of the mind?

“Will you just be quiet?” the crab-man asked with a grin. “I brought you here because I thought- I thought you’d enjoy it!” 

Ringo’s face fell.

A trick of the mind, it seemed.

Instinctively, he reached for his necklace. But to his horror, nothing was there.

As the two stepped in through the gates of the garden, a million thoughts ran through his head.

It was supposed to be there, he thought.

It was supposed to be  _ right there _ .

That’s when it came upon him, like the sunlight upon the land.

In the dream, he didn’t have it yet. 

But considering he and Rette were in the Garden of Agratsch, he was about to get it.

It was a memory, he realized. 

And it was one stolen by the  _ sje’inn’a’e _ .

“The ray in the market told me we should go to the Grave of Zadjra Yedl…would you- you like to?”

Ringo’s cheeks flamed blue, his skin and tentacles as deep in color as a sapphire. 

Of all the memories it could have been, why this one? Why the one so important to him, the  _ one  _ memory he would never trade for anything.

He wanted to scream.

“Well, back in the day, she was one of Gharra’s mates. As in the revolutionary Gharra.” 

If Ethelein’s goal was to tear him apart, he thought, he was sure doing a good job.

That bird deserved a blasted medal—it was just that good at ruining people’s days. 

Rette suddenly gasped. “What?!” he cried. “How have you never heard of Gharra? It’s—” he laughed to himself. “Padwen Gharra, the  _ Lord of Agratsch _ !”

With the whole history lesson about to befall him, Ringo quickly realized that he had to keep his eyes peeled if he wanted to see the  _ sje’inn’a’e _ ’s sign. 

It was a bit ironic, though.

He had to keep his eyes peeled for a sign he wasn’t supposed to pay any attention to.

Funny.

“Alright, look,” the crab-man sighed. “just let me- let me tell you so you don’t get kicked out of the bay…

“Padwen Gharra was the general during the Age of the Crown, and after King Noghor abolished the senate, he led a siege o-on the capital and proclaimed himself the Lord of Agratsch—I can’t believe you don’t know this.”

Ringo nodded wordlessly and took a moment to observe the scenery.

It was just as beautiful as he remembered, the various metal trinkets gleaming in the light like jewels on a siren’s bosom. 

But that was only the first field—one of five, each one more beautiful than the last.

He opened his mouth to speak, but Rette quickly tuned him out.

That’s right, he realized. He couldn’t hear him.

“What’s that?” the crab-man asked. “Oh. Yeah, it’s in the- the third—it’s named after her, actually. The Garden of Zadjra.” 

Ringo smiled.

Maybe he could hear him after all.

Just a little bit.

“Oh,” Rette scowled. “I’m nearly there! Anyways—Gharra was the Lord of Agratsch, and instituted basically everything we have now. The senate, the- the Order of Equal Position, all the different districts… and Zadjra was one of his mates.

“While they were on their way to the capital, she was taken hostage b-by one of Noghor’s men.”

Ringo’s brow furrowed. If only Rette knew the irony he was speaking. 

But then… did he? 

If the octopus-man’s memory did not fail him, then the population crisis had already started.

But how bad was it?

They were still allowing outsiders into the country, he thought, so it must have still been in its early stages.

“And they threw her in an old shell and tortured her… she was there seventeen days. But on the seventeenth, they were tired of her not giving them any information, s-so they asked her…”

They were entering the second field now, Ringo noted. 

The metal had begun to take on shapes; they had graduated from just being fragments of human shinies into trinkets repurposed with Agratsch designs. 

It was still gorgeous, but then, he supposed it would always be. 

He had always loved silver gardens, ever since his mother had first allowed him to step foot in hers.

But seeing one the size of the one in Agratsch… it was nearly incomprehensible to him, at least the first time.

“Oh!” Rette piped up. “You like it?”

Ringo smiled awkwardly. It was as if the crab-man knew his every thought, although he knew the  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ wasn’t powerful enough for such things. They were limited to only changing one detail, especially the more chaotic ones.

But, as Macca had explained to him earlier, Julian and Sean had both had a dream that threw this rule on its head.

So maybe there was hope.

He swallowed before beginning, “I do.Y—”

“I’m glad,” the crab-man sighed. 

A beat passed.

“But- but back to the story!”

Ringo sighed.

“On the seventeenth day, angry at their captive for not responding to them, they asked Zadjra whether she would rather hand over th- the whereabouts of her mate and his army, or be publicly executed.

“She answered, ‘If only for my home and my people, I would give up my life.’”

The cecaelia grew pale. 

He had heard that said before, more times than he could even count. 

His time in Agratsch, you see, after he had left the ship and chosen to live with Rette, was not the most peaceful.

The source of the conflict was rather simple—the crab population in the country was rapidly decreasing. But it was not because fewer crabs were mating, or even that there were fewer to begin with; the crab-people had always been one of the bay’s most prosperous species.

It was, put rather bluntly, a genocide.

“And the day she was k-killed—they had her beheaded by the King himself—she became a national hero. Her death was a rallying cry for Gharra’s militia, and after he and- and his men took over the government, the day of her death became a national holiday.”

In spite of the gruesome story, Rette tried to smile to himself, his eyes cast without thought along the path they swam, tracing over the metals one by one. 

“She wasn’t actually killed here, but, this is the spot claimed to be where Gharra was told of her death. And in memory of her, he commissioned the Garden, built on the idea that the citizens- they deserved to be proud of their history, and th-thus, the battlefield became one of the more contemporary wonders of the known oceanic world.”

Ringo shut his eyes tight hearing the speech again.

The Garden of Agratsch would be destroyed in four years' time, its metals and jewels stolen by citizens fleeing in a panic that the city would soon become a ghost town.

But as for the present—or at least, the relative present, the one in the dream—the diaspora was a long way away.

The octopus-man was amazed by the thought.

He was standing in an Agratsch before the restrictions. Seafolk of every kind could travel through the country, and even their cities freely, without fear of being caught by humans or searched by the authorities.

There was no talk of sieging the shore.

No senators had been assassinated yet.

And the concept of forced mating was one intangible, a far off, _it could never happen here_ sort of idea.

All there was, if Ringo’s mind didn’t fail him, was the knowledge that too many crabs were disappearing.

Whole groups would venture off towards the shore and never return, their families devastated as their relatives became nothing but another tally mark in the senate’s record.

He wasn’t even sure if they suspected it was the humans yet.

Rette sighed as they ventured into the third field. 

“People speak much of her these days, you know,” he said.

Oh, Ringo knew alright.

Her words had been plastered everywhere when he left. 

On banners.

On shells.

Painted on the street.

It was a rallying cry for all of those upset with the government and its tyrannical handling of the disappearances, for the ultranationalists willing to let their species die, and for everyone caught in the middle.

It was whatever you wanted it to be.

And it was everywhere.

“Her- her story’s resonated with a lot of them lately. I suppose it’s because of the disappearances.”

And for the first time of so many, the crab-man grew very quiet.

He was deep in thought, introspective. 

He was taking the time to observe the world around him—the one where his species was disappearing without a trace and he was powerless to stop it.

It bothered him to no end.

Finally, he shook his head as he muttered, “What isn’t these days…”

Ringo wanted to cry at the sight, to scream the very life out of his lungs until he woke himself up from his nightmare.

He didn’t want to stick around to see the end of the dream.

Rette suddenly turned to him. “Hm?” he asked. “Oh, well… i-it hasn’t gotten much better. They found a hollowed out claw by the shore the other day; it looked like it had been snapped right off the person’s head, from what the surgeon said.”

The crab-man sighed. 

“No one knows how it got there, or who it belonged to, but… things aren’t looking very promising, f-farm boy.”

Ringo frowned.

“Oh, but why worry?” Rette asked with a melancholy grin. “We’ve got this whole garden around us, full of- full of color and pearls and gems. So I say—why waste our time talking about politics?”

Turning to a path in front of the two, the crab-man sighed. “Come on,” he said. “the grave is right up ahead. And there are some nice spots to sit, from what I’ve heard. We can just- just take a minute to ourselves, you know?”

Ringo kept his eyes locked on the path below him as the two swam.

It killed him to see Rette so happy again. He was so far removed from those later days, the ones where he would go days without eating or sleeping, where his face was a permanent bone-white, and his cheeks ever hollow. 

It was as though he was dead without ever having to die.

So to see the crab-man so full of life, so proud of his country and its history, and bearing a grin…

It was too much for Ringo’s heart to handle.

“So,” Rette let out in a low whistle. “those humans really tr-treating you good?” 

The octopus-man said nothing.

His friend nodded, but his face betrayed concern. “Yeah, it looked like it… but you’ve lost quite a bit of weight, haven’t you?”

Even in the dream, Ringo snickered at the question. 

Rette would have lost weight, too, he thought, if he had eaten nothing but hardtack and monkberries for years on end.

The crab-man drew back, his lips puckering as he stepped into a clearing and asked, “What- what in the deep sea is that?” 

And before he could even think of a response, Ringo found himself in front of a massive stone obelisk, engraved with Agratsch writing and surrounded by a circular perimeter of gems and pearls.

His heart split in two, knowing what would later become of the monument.

Rette piped up next to him. “Oh!” he began, excitedly. “You like it?”

The crab-man waited a second and then laughed. 

“I’m glad! You know, I—”

Another pause. 

He nodded, turning to the obelisk.

“Right...um, ‘Here lies, at least in memory, the spirit of the martyred Zadjra Yedl. May she never be forgotten, lest the people of Agratsch cease to exist.’”

Well, Ringo thought, that sure stung.

“And- and then they’ve got her quote. ‘If only for my home and my country, I would give up my life.’”

A beat passed.

“H-here, why don’t we sit?” Rette asked, his hand outstretched to an empty patch of sand to their right.

Without a word, the two swam over. 

And it was then, Ringo knew, that his heart would be cut open and bled bone-dry by the  _ sje’inn’a’e _ .

There was no use avoiding it, though.

The two sat in silence for a minute, Ringo’s hair floating around every which way underwater. 

He couldn’t believe he used to put up with such things.

Finally, Rette spoke, his voice cracked and low as he began, “So… you wanted to know what I- I was doing in the marketplace earlier.”

Ringo wrapped his arms around his tentacles, now growing a stormy blue.

“W-well, um… it’s a bit of a funny story,” the crab-man confessed, blood rushing to his cheeks. “You know, all the other guys—Tai, Lu, Angse—they- they really wanted me to do this. They wanted me to bring you here. Partly because they knew you would enjoy it, b-but,” he sighed. “It’s more than that.”

And just as he began to reach into his satchel, he cursed himself. 

“ _ Itschva! _ ” he cried. “You wouldn’t- you wouldn’t know, would you?”

Oh, but Ringo did know.

That didn’t stop Rette, though, as he continued through flushed cheeks, “S-so, there’s this crab custom where… when you… ah,  _ itschva _ …”

“Take your time,” the octopus-man sighed. “It’s nothing I haven’t heard before.”

Rette didn’t hear him.

With a sharp inhale, he went on, “Basically there’s- there’s this crab mating custom where… when you want to ask someone to be your mate, you give them a gift. I-if they accept it, then they accept your courtship, and if not, well— you get the idea!”

And with that, he thrust his hand into his satchel, pulling out a dull silver pendant on a long, ovular clay ring. 

“So,” he began quietly, holding out the necklace to the cecaelia. “D-do you accept it?”

It didn’t matter what Ringo said. Nothing would change.

So with a clammy, limp hand, he took the necklace and turned it all around to inspect it.

A prime example of western smithery, he thought. The pendant was inscribed on one side with an eight-pointed star, and on the other side…

He froze in place, catching only a brief glimpse of the character before diverting his eyes to the obelisk in front of him.

Here, the pendant read.

Here. 

Next to him, Rette’s voice became distorted, frighteningly high pitched and shrill.

“I’m here,” he said.

It was then Ringo realized he was no longer speaking to his old mate. He wasn’t even speaking to his memory.

He was speaking to the  _ sje’inn’a’e. _

“I’m right here,” it said, its voice pleading. “I’m right here.”

Ringo didn’t dare speak to it.

And at this, it began to grow frustrated. It could not stand being ignored. “I’m here!” it cried. “I’m right here!”

But the octopus-man had to ignore it.

And so he did, as its mantra went on for hours, if not days, growing more and more desperate with time.

The phrase rang out in Ringo’s head like a bell, and for a fleeting second, he wasn’t sure he would be able to continue.

He couldn’t stand having his mate right next to him, so close he could reach out and touch him, and be forced to ignore him.

It was a pain that broke his bones, melted his skin, and stopped his heart, a pain made so sharp for a simple reason.

He had ignored Rette long enough.

And in doing so, he had killed him.

Still, in spite of everything, Ringo endured, and his patience was rewarded when the dream-world began to fade to white and a low hum overpowered the demon’s call.

He opened his eyes.

The sun was rising, but Macca was not, his breathing calm and periodic as he lay curled up in the sand, Eschri’s book held haphazardly in his arms.

Ringo sighed, realizing his choices were limited. 

He couldn’t wake the siren—that would just be wrong. But in the same respect, he couldn’t fall back to sleep. Not after everything he had seen.

He fiddled with his necklace, taking great comfort in the name on the back of the pendant.

He needed to speak to someone, he thought. Macca was the best candidate, but… it just wasn’t doable.

The sun was still rising, however, so the chances were small that  _ everyone  _ was asleep.

And watching the sunrise brought back a great sense of nostalgia for the octopus-man. 

It reminded him of his mornings on the  _ Sgt. Pepper _ , when he used to sit in the crow’s nest and contemplate life.

But he wasn’t always alone up there, in fact, he rarely was. 

He breathed a sigh of relief. 

At sunrise, there was only one person he could speak to. 

Removing a piece of paper from his satchel, he dipped his pen in a jar of dye and left a note for the siren to wake up to.

_ Macca, I have gone to speak to George on matters regarding the  _ sje’inn’a’e _. I shall either return shortly or spend the day at the house. _

_ Peace and Love,  _

_ Ringo. _


	33. No Simple Answer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which George and Ringo find each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Mention of suicide. Please read at your own risk, and if the content bothers you, find a way to safely take care of yourself.
> 
> Edit: oh heck I messed with the HTML... sorry in advance, but the second half of this isn’t indented :,(

Dhani Harrison had, at least up until that fateful day nearly a year prior, never been one to hallucinate. He was always a perfectly normal boy, at least in his parents’ eyes. He was never especially weak or sickly, and throughout his life, he had never been the kind of person to cause a scene or otherwise try to make himself the center of attention.

He was a boy that stuck to his books. He kept his head low and his nose clean, and, even in the trying times that had recently befallen him, he remained a rather intelligent young man.

Which made it all the stranger when he awoke on the twelfth of December to find a strange golden light shining in his room.

Although still not fully awake, he was absolutely certain it was there—and it was moving.

It was a strangely-shaped sort of thing, a soft-looking, moving light in the form of seven—no, eight—long streams. 

It started off by the doorway and then quickly advanced deeper into the room, approaching the foot of George’s bed after just a few seconds.

Was Dhani hallucinating?

He had to be, he reasoned. There was just no other logical explanation.

But when he had hallucinated before, he had never seen anything like _that_.

No, when he did, he saw one specific scene.

The stairs.

Two figures sprawled out on the floor.

And the blood—it was everywhere, staining everything it touched, and pooling on the marble floor faster than he could account for.

But, to his immense relief, as the light drew nearer and nearer still towards his father, he remained in the widowed Madame Lennon’s house, laying squarely in her guest bedchamber.

That was good, he thought. Perhaps he had reclaimed some of his sanity.

Or maybe not. 

For, to his shock and horror, as the light drew nearer and nearer still towards his father, he noticed something soft and pale being illuminated by the golden sheen, beads of water shimmering on its surface before trailing away.

Skin, he thought with a start.

_ There was someone in the room. _

And by the Gods, they were in possession of some sort of magical light source.

His blood froze over, his muscles paralyzed.

_ There was someone in the room _ .

And they were making their way towards his father.

_ There was someone in the room _ .

But what were they going to do when they got to him?

_ There was someone in the room. _

Were they armed?

_ There was someone in the room _ .

And as they stepped into the space between the two beds, Dhani decided he could wait no longer.

Springing forth from his bed like a mouse from a cobra, he drew in a deep breath, and with the force of one thousand suns, and also with none at all, he cried, “I rebuke you, you vile creature! Be gone from this place and do not ever return, lest you wish to face the wrath of the gods!”

The light rotated, and as Dhani continued to scream profanities and curses at it, he failed to notice the gleaming blue eyes staring back at him.

George awoke with a start, and immediately upon doing so began to cough.

His son had, without a doubt, succumbed to another one of his nightmares. It was a thought that did not please Sir Harrison, but it was certainly one he was used to.

There was nothing he could do but try and comfort the young man.

“Dhani—” he wheezed. 

“Father, there is someone in the room!” the young man cried, desperate.

Then, turning to the light, now a deep blue, he screeched, “Who are you? What business have you got here?” 

Ringo was, needless to say, deeply frightened and immensely surprised. He had seen the boy sleeping when he opened the door, although, considering the recent events, he very clearly was not.

Straining his voice, Dhani again cried, “Who are you, you wretched beast?”

Still coughing, George waved his hand in his son’s general direction. 

“Dhani!” he sputtered. “For the love of God, calm yourself!”

Ignoring him, as he was more focused on the young man’s rather brash remarks, Ringo crossed his arms.

“Wretched is a bit strong, now,” he began with a frown. “Isn’t it?”

Realizing his mistake, Dhani’s face flamed like the fires of hell. He felt his stomach sink as he very quietly apologized.

“I did not mean to scare you,” the cecaelia continued. “I just wanted to speak to George.”

Dhani nodded. “I was not aware you could glow…” 

At this Ringo laughed insincerely, and simply answered, “I can do many things.”

Holding onto his son’s hand for support, as he had now stopped coughing, George said, “Yes you can, Ringo. Now what’s this about speaking to me?”

“Well,” the octopus-man began shyly. “I just came to ask you if I could speak to you. My intention was to gently awake you, lest I alarm you, although…” he laughed. “I suppose I forgot about Dhani.”

The old Sir Harrison nodded. “Clearly,” he sighed. “Now let us speak, if you so desire it.”

“Are you sure?” Ringo asked. “I can allow you some more time to sleep—” 

“No need.” George cut him off, shaking his head. “I am already awake. Now shall we go downstairs, or…”

“That would be nice, I think.”

“Very well then,” the old man sighed. “Dhani, you go back to sleep.” 

Dhani furrowed his brow. “But Father, I surely cannot sleep in such a heightened state.”

“In that case, light a candle and read something. Draw, write, play solitaire… it matters not. Although it would be nice if Ringo and I could have some privacy, at least for now. Perhaps you can come down later—I shall leave it to your discretion.”

A moment passed in silence.

After taking a deep breath in, if only to break the tension, George wheezed, “Let us go, then. No use wasting time.”

“Right,” Ringo nodded.

With that, the two left the room, leaving Dhani alone with his thoughts.

It was quite a dangerous thing—even George knew that, but he did not want the young man impeding on their conversation.

And so, as the candles were being lit downstairs in the dining room and Ringo took his seat, Sir Harrison could not help but worry about his son.

“I truly am sorry to have frightened you,” the octopus-man began. “I did not mean to.”

“It's perfectly alright,” George sighed. “It isn’t the first time you’ve done so.”

Ringo laughed. “And I’m sure it will not be the last.” 

“Certainly,” George agreed.

The sun just barely shone into the room, peaking through the trees and bushes and across the mosaic in Strawberry Fields to allow just a single ray into Madame Lennon’s dining room.

And in this light, paired with that created by the candles, Ringo could finally get a good look at his friend.

He was tired, he thought, that was for sure, considering how he had been awoken. But then, he always seemed tired these days. Ringo supposed it was an effect of his illness, mostly because he wasn’t sure what else it would be.

His hair was wild and unkempt, at least more than it usually was, and his eyes were sunken, almost weak.

His undershirt was a crisp white, folded and wrinkled in spots from a good while of use, but Ringo noticed, in sharp contrast to the dove-white linen, a cluster of bright red dots on his friend’s right wrist, the same color he had seen before on Macca’s teeth and claws.

“Is that blood?” he asked with a cocked eyebrow.

“Hm?” George asked, not having truly been listening to the question.

Then, before Ringo could even repeat himself, George processed the words and drew the conclusion that he was referring to his undershirt. 

“Ah, yes,” he answered, taking a look at the cuff for himself. “I did not have my handkerchief on my person earlier, and so…”

“You were coughing blood?” Ringo asked, alarmed.

George shut his eyes and nodded. “I have been for quite some time, now.”

“Well— well, that is bad, isn’t it?”

“It is,” the old man sighed. “Although it does not bother me. I don’t see why it should, after all. If I’m dying, well… I pity myself, then, I suppose. No need for you to do so.”

Ringo tilted his head.

“That’s how I think of it, anyway.”

“Right…” The cecaelia stared at the table, looking into the grain of the wood as if it would tell him something. “Now, how about Dhani?”

“What about him?” George asked.

“Well, you must admit, he was awfully… jumpy.”

“Oh, he’s been like that,” Sir Harrison said, shaking his head. “It's been nearly a year now. He is simply worried about me, that’s all. A bit excessively, even, if you were to ask my opinion of it all.”

A beat passed.

“You know, he just—” George struggled to get the words to form in his mouth. “It’s as if he’s completely forgotten who he is, you know? It’s like he can no longer live for himself. He’s just got to live for me.”

Ringo frowned.

“And I don’t want that!” his friend continued. “I don’t want him worrying about me like that, because then he’s no longer taking care of himself.” He placed a finger on his temple. “He’s gone mad, Ringo, he truly has. And he’s scared Olivia and I half to death with his antics… he’s been seeing things. He doesn’t sleep at night, he doesn’t eat at meals… And now he thinks he’s possessed! For the love, Ringo, can you imagine that? The boy thinks he’s possessed by a demon! He thinks the whole thing last winter was because of him! That he brought it upon me! I just—”

Ringo wasn’t sure what his friend was talking about, but seeing that he was in such an emotional state, he decided not to ask.

Meanwhile, George paused a moment to collect himself. “I’m sorry to rant, I just… I need him to cut all of this out. If not for his own sake, then for mine, you know?”

Ringo simply put a hand on the old man’s back.

Somehow, he knew just what to say, but simultaneously had no idea how to help.

“Oh, hell…” his friend sighed. “I’m sorry, that’s not what this is about. Here, why don’t you—” 

“No,” Ringo said firmly. “No, it’s… God, it’s perfect, actually.”

George broke from his seriousness into an awkward smile. “Is it?” he asked.

The cecaelia nodded. “It is, aye.”

A beat passed.

“You know, I was just dreaming about Rette, and… I really understand what you mean. Very deeply.” 

George leaned back in his chair. “Rette, ey?”

Ringo nodded.

“He was the sodomite crab-man, wasn’t he?”

“Aye, that was him.”

George fell silent.

This worried Ringo to no end. He had always known George had never exactly  _ liked  _ Rette, if for no other reason than because he was Ringo’s mate. 

The way John had described it, humans had a very strong disdain for those who chose to mate within their same sex. That was a concept Ringo had always found very strange, as you would be hard pressed to find such an opinion in the sea, but even more so for one simple reason:

George was, at least at the time, on a pirate ship full of women and only four—or five, including Ethelein—men. And the men had all been banned from taking the women as their mates, and vice versa. So what did they do? They mated with one another, of course! 

Macca with John, Ethelein… apparently also with John, Océane with Delphine, Ringo with Rette, and George with his contempt in the corner, his arms crossed as he shouted at the others.

It was a very strange sight, seeing George convinced he was better than all those who decided to take same-sex mates, but one made up by the fact that some of those mates—namely Rette, also did not like him. 

Still, Ringo truly did want to speak to his friend about his dream. There were many parallels he could draw, after all, between the two of them. 

So he only prayed that George would still want to speak.

And lucky enough for him, his prayer was answered when the old man asked, “What exactly did you dream about him?” 

Ringo furrowed his brow, unsure of where to begin. 

“Do you remember when we were docked in the New World?” he finally asked. “In Norfolk, I believe?”

“Which time?”

“You had gone off to find some tobacco, I believe… and in the meantime, I was lamenting about visiting Rette. Do you remember that? I was so nervous…”

George nodded. “Well, now that you mention it…”

“Right. I ended up visiting him, of course, and he took me to a garden under the sea— a silver garden.”

“The ones you like?” George asked, now just slightly more awake. “With the shinies?”

“Yes!” Ringo cried, happy he remembered such a detail. “That’s right!”

George smiled.

“Anyway, he took me there, and he gave me this,” he said, holding up the pendant on his necklace. “He gave it to me and told me he wanted to be my mate. So from then on, we were.”

Here the octopus-man drew a long sigh. His eyes downcast, he continued, “I dreamed of that day. But it was the  _ sje’inn’a’e _ ’s fault, you know. So there was one thing wrong.”

George knit his eyebrows together. He had been lucky enough to never dream of the creature, one of only four remaining people with such a privilege. 

So, needless to say, he was unsure of how to go about counseling his friend.

But by God, it was Ringo.

He couldn’t just not help Ringo! It was his sworn duty, sworn to no one but himself of course. It would truly be a sin to not try and help the poor octopus-man, especially considering his patience during George’s rant.

So, bearing all this in mind, it was with a patient and caring tone that he asked, “What was wrong?”

Ringo nodded, acknowledging the question. Then, realizing that he would have to do so for demonstrative purposes, he removed his necklace, something he rarely ever did. 

Leaning into George, the pendant extended in the human’s direction, he pointed to the silver and began, “Do you see that character there?”

“Aye, I do.”

“It’s Naiadic—It is the Naiadic spelling of the name Rette.”

Sighing as he brought the necklace back to its rightful spot, Ringo said, “In the dream, however, it didn’t say that. It just said ‘here’.” The cecaelia shook his head. “I didn’t spend much time dwelling on it, of course—I’m not mad. But then Rette—or, perhaps I should say the  _ sje’inn’a’e _ …”

“Go on,” George promoted.

Ringo flushed a soft, stormy blue. “Either way,” he continued, clearing his throat. “He began to speak to me. And he just said the same thing over and over again; he was saying ‘Here! I’m here—I’m right here!’ 

“And it just broke my heart, you know. Because I had to ignore him like that. And he was screaming! He was absolutely mad!”

He paused here to sigh. 

“I guess what I mean to say is this,” he reasoned. 

George tilted his head, eager to hear what his friend had to say.

But no words came out, much to Ringo’s frustration.

“What I mean to say is  _ this _ ,” he repeated. “Ignoring him like that… with how he was screaming… it just— I’ve done that before! You know?”

The old man pursed his lips. He wasn’t used to seeing his friend so emotional.

But then again, he thought, he hadn’t seen his friend in twenty years. 

“Ringo, I’m not sure what you mean,” he mumbled.

The octopus-man’s face deflated. 

“Do you remember how Rette died?” he asked in a single, melancholy breath.

“Well, he committed suicide, did he not?”

“He did. Do you remember why?” 

George furrowed his brow and racked his brain. There was only one thing he had ever known to bother the crab-man.

“Was it because of the disappearances?” he asked gently.

Ringo nodded. “Part of it, yes. The senate handled it horribly—I don’t think they could have done a worse job. You know, we weren’t allowed to leave the city, we weren’t allowed to go to the shore… but the worst part was the mating.” He sighed. “By that point—by the time he…  _ died _ —there were so few crabs remaining that they were worried they might disappear altogether. And of course, that was extremely unlikely, but probability never stopped anyone, you know? Anyway, their intelligent and rational solution to this was to force crabs to mate, regardless of whether or not they wanted to.” His face deepened in its ocean hue. “It didn’t matter to them who those people were,” he spat. “Because they weren’t people who already had mates, they were  _ numbers _ . Goddamn  _ numbers _ in a tally! And if they could just get the numbers up…”

He shut his eyes, if for no other reason than to keep himself from crying.

“Oh, what does it matter?” he asked.

George frowned. “I think it matters.”

“It was years ago!”

“That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt you.”

“But it—”

“No,” George warned. “No buts. If it hurt you, Ringo, it hurt you. You know, that’s the one good thing I’ve learned from—”

The cecaelia spoke over him.

“Can you just let me finish?” he asked.

George fell silent.

“Look,” Ringo sighed. “My point is—I ignored him back then. I ignored him when he would go days without eating, I would ignore him when he would awaken in the night and stare at the shore, and every time he told me he could no longer live in such a state, I just smiled and assured him everything would be fine.”

George frowned as tears welled in his friend’s eyes.

“And now he’s gone…” the octopus-man continued, his voice wavering. “Stars above, if I had just  _ listened _ …”

“Maybe he would still be here,” George muttered.

“Exactly.”

For an unnaturally long time, the two of them sat in silence.

It was difficult to know what to say, George thought, or how to say it. Clearly, Rette’s death was an extremely sensitive subject, and he knew that one wrong move could set Ringo off.

Finally, he sighed, and slowly began, “You know, that’s the thing about being dead. Your body is gone, but your memory still exists. And you don’t get to choose what people do with that memory—that’s entirely their choice.”

Ringo furrowed his brow. He wasn’t sure where this was going.

“So, you know, you take a look at someone like John. The lad’s been dead twenty years, and what do we all think of him? Well, you and I and Macca might say he was a fine fellow, if not a bit arrogant. But that's completely different from how Yoko would think of him. I mean, think back to last week. She’s still got his glasses, all covered in blood, and what for? It’s a sort of relic, I suppose. He’s a martyr to her.”

He chuckled.

“And now here we all are, together for the first time in ages, and for what? Because he’s dead. The man can’t see what he’s done to all of us, or how uptight we all got over him—he’s ashes, for heaven’s sake.”

“I don’t see how this relates to Rette,” Ringo interrupted.

George sighed. “I mean, he isn’t here to see how upset his death made you… I— I don’t know.”

“You’re just angry, aren’t you?”

“I am,” George answered, defeated.

Ringo nodded. “Well, you know what?”

“What?”

“That makes two of us.” he said. “Now are you mad about John, or…”

“Oh, it’s him, me, Yoko, Dhani… everyone, really.”

The octopus-man hummed. “Dhani, ey?” 

“Yes,” George admitted. “and you already know why.”

“I do,” Ringo said, affirming. “I truly do. And maybe you don’t believe me—you are completely free not to do so—but I understand how you feel about him.”

The old man turned to him, an eyebrow cocked. “You do?” he asked.

His friend nodded. “Aye—about him no longer living for himself. That’s… it just reminds me of Rette, you know?”

“How so?”

The octopus-man sighed. “Well, he was always concerned about me. I’m sure you remember…” he chuckled. “He thought everything—no,  _ everyone  _ was a threat. You, John, Macca… well, Macca was okay, I suppose, but you especially.”

George thought back to their days at sea. It wasn’t often that the crab-man came aboard, but when he did, it was always a spectacle. 

Rette was very untrusting of humans, you see, and so took extreme precaution in dealing with them. 

He used to snap his claws at anyone who dared to look at him for more than a second, stare people down as they walked by him, and on more than one occasion, he had tried to fight George.

It truly was a sight to behold, the old man thought.

“And then when we were all locked in the city… it’s like he wasn’t himself anymore. He forgot who he was, because all he was was in danger. All the time.” He sighed. “I really see a lot of him in Dhani, you know.”

“Do you?” George asked in a whisper.

“I do,” Ringo said with a frown. “He’s awfully frightened, I think… paranoid. He sees everything as a threat to you, doesn’t he?”

“Aye,” the old man sighed. “Hell, he told me the other day that he’s convinced Yoko and her children are witches.”

“Is that a bad thing?” the cecaelia asked, confused.

“Immensely,” George fiddled with his shirt sleeve. “In fact, such accusations were what led to John’s death.”

Ringo’s face paled.

“And, you know, it is a very disappointing thing to hear from him, because…” he paused, trying to find the right way to craft his words. Slowly, he continued, “He is conflating suspicion and confirmation. I suppose I have not yet told you, but,  _ I _ was actually suspected of witchcraft. And let’s just say it led to some rather grave consequences.”

“What kind of consequences?” the octopus-man asked, alarmed. “Are you alright?”

George sighed. “I am perfectly fine now, by some miracle… but it was last winter, nearly one year ago exactly—it was just before the new year began.”

Ringo drew his hand to his chin.

“Very early one morning,” his friend began. “a man broke into our home. He broke in through the window. And I went to see what all the commotion was—he was screaming, you know. He was mad.”

“Go on,” the octopus-man urged.

“He had a knife. And he began to stab me. It must have been fifty times, he did so. There was blood everywhere.”

Ringo’s eyes grew wide, his tentacles pale.

“Olivia eventually took him out… she didn’t kill him, though. He was still very much alive. After that she sent for the doctor, not to mention the magistrate. And I was fine, you know, as fine as I could be.”

He paused, and then with a sigh, continued, “But that was when Dhani came downstairs. My God, he panicked. You would have thought he was going to faint, by the looks of it. The poor boy couldn’t even breathe! And he wasn’t the one lying on the floor as his lung deflated and blood spilled out of his mouth!” 

George shook his head, and then finally meeting his friend’s eyes, which he was disappointed to see portraying a great deal of concern, he concluded, “He just hasn’t been the same since. It’s like he’s stuck living on that day. He just can’t seem to get over it. And I don’t understand why… just that afternoon he had been a confident young man searching for a bride, and overnight he became a madman. He sees things, Ringo. He sees blood that isn’t spilled—it’s gotten to the point now where Olivia’s certain he’ll end up in a madhouse, or dead in a ditch somewhere. And he’s our only son. Hell, he’s our only child!

“So of all people,” Sir Harrison spat. “I would have never thought him to be the kind of person that acts on suspicion alone. Especially as it pertains to witchcraft. Because that man—you know, the one that stabbed me—that’s what  _ he _ did. And I don’t know what I’d do if Dhani ended up like that…”

He sighed, and then, having concluded his monologue, turned to meet his friend’s eyes.

Ringo was in a state of shock.

“George, I’m so so—”

“No need,” George interrupted. “I’ve no need for anyone’s pity.”

“But that’s— it’s horrible!”

“And now it’s over.” The old man shut his eyes. “And I’ve no need for you to dwell on it anymore than I need Dhani to.”

For a second the two of them were quiet, and then Ringo pointed out, “You’re contradicting yourself.”

“How so?”

“We both are,” the octopus-man said evenly. “When I think I should be over Rette’s death, you tell me it’s alright to think about it. But you can’t let yourself do the same. Then  _ I  _ have to tell you that.”

George drew back. 

Ringo had always been smarter than he seemed, but to see him so  _ correct _ … it was a strange sight, to say the least.

Observant, George thought, that’s what he was. 

“Maybe we should just let ourselves think about it,” Ringo went on. “Maybe it’d do some good.”

“I can’t think of it when my son is losing his mind right in front of me.”

“Then you’re just the same as him, aren’t you?”

George flushed. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re all worried about him, and him about you.”

“That’s called caring for someone, Ringo.” the old man said dryly.

The octopus-man took a deep breath in. “I didn’t mean to offend you,” he sighed. “I just happen to think it’s a noteworthy observation. It’s something to look out for, you know?”

“Certainly,” George said. “But what you misunderstand is this: Whether he wants to admit it or not, I am going to die. Sooner than later, I’m sure. I’ve not much time left on this Earth.”

He paused here and swallowed what felt like a rock in his throat, warm and tough and massive. 

“But I’m all that’s keeping him tied to it.”

Then, as fate would have it, he fell into one of his coughing spells.

Ringo decided to wait it out, and thought about an appropriate response in between his friend’s wheezing.

Finally, as George’s coughing subsided, the octopus-man sighed, “There’s no simple answer, is there?”

“Certainly not.”

“Well, then… might I give you a bit of advice?”

George nodded, letting out one final cough.

“Please listen to him,” the cecaelia urged. “Listen to how he feels. And be honest with him about it. No sugarcoating things, alright? Just listen to him.”

“I’ll keep trying, mate.”

Ringo nodded sternly. “Good. Because you know what?”

“What?”

“If I couldn’t save Rette, I can at least try and save Dhani.” 

George drew a deep breath in. “You’re an admirable man, Ringo,” he said. “You know that?”

Ringo laughed. “I suppose so, yes.”

“But just promise me one thing, if you will.”

“Certainly.”

“Do not repeat what I’ve said to you unto a single soul. I may know my son is mad, but I do not take any comfort at all in knowing that others might. For all intents and purposes, he is sane until proven otherwise. He’s simply… affected. Does that sound good?”

Ringo wasn’t sure how to answer that, and so, in a moment of confusion, he agreed.

But he didn’t like the sound of it.

He didn’t like the sound of it at all.


	34. Certainty Without Precognition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the bird’s identity becomes an even larger mystery.

Strolling along the black and white tiles that scattered across the circle and chirping in a one-sided conversation with itself, the bird was awfully busy doing nothing. 

It was a Tuesday like any other, essentially. 

Its company was, well,  _ somewhere _ , and its mind was made of amethyst, an analytical, self-critical, forward-moving sort of state. 

It preferred not to dwell on things of the past, and focused instead on what was directly in front of it.

Which was why it became very happy to see a young man with poor eyesight and a seemingly great fondness for the dove at the western end of the mosaic.

Sean smiled as the creature ran up to him on its little legs, and then, too eager to walk, lifted its body into the air and perched itself onto his hand with an excited squawk.

He smiled.

“Good afternoon, sir!”

The bird nestled itself against Sean’s skin, which the young man took as a good sign it wanted to be pet.

Still grinning, he drew his other hand near to the dove, and, his palm facing away from it, he rubbed its neck.

It cooed for him softly in response and preened itself so that it was in just the right spot to receive all of the young man’s attention.

“It’s very good to see you here, sir,” Sean whispered. “I was worried I wouldn’t find you.”

The bird nodded once as Sean pet it and opened its mouth to let out a chirp, but much to everyone’s surprise, before it could do so, its frame of mind shifted to one of a brilliant ruby, and instead it drew its head back, confused.

“Would you mind if I take a moment to speak to you?” Sean asked. “I truly would like to.”

Fluttering off of the young man’s hand, the bird took a moment to step back and size him up.

He was about average size, as far as humans were, anyway, and his hair was a dark black, like the night sky. 

His eyes were dark.

His features were soft.

But there was something awfully familiar about him.

The bird cocked its head.

“Sir?” Sean asked, a bit confused by its actions.

“Who are you?” it replied, its voice pleasantly low, but also somehow high and even, although still a bit harsh.

Sean’s eyes widened. “Since when can you speak like that?” 

“I’m not sure. But you never answered the question, my dear. So please, if you will—who are you?”

“Have— have you always been able to speak?!”

“I already told you, dear, I’m not sure. But surely you’re sure of who you are, aren’t you?”

The young man was absolutely flabbergasted. In a moment of brilliance, he reached for the looking glass in his pocket. 

It was red, he noticed, and inside he saw a very young boy, not unlike himself at all.

“What is this for?” he asked, holding the mirror out to the dove. “Do you know that?”

The bird paused. 

It had never seen sea glass like that in its life. 

“I’m afraid I don’t, dear. But please, could you tell me who you are?”

Sean’s face fell. For the first time, he heard what the creature was saying. 

“I beg your pardon?” he asked.

“I said I don’t know what that sea glass is for. Now, who are you?”

“You don’t—” He swallowed, his throat much too dry and heavy for his liking. “Do you not know?”

The bird began to pace about the mosaic. “Oh, I have my suspicions, of course, if a guessing game is what you would fancy.”

“A guessing game?” 

“If you so please.”

Sean faltered. Whoever the bird was, he didn’t appreciate being a part of its game—especially when he was an unwilling player.

“I do not,” he said evenly, his throat dry. “I do not please at all.”

“Very well, then,” the dove nodded. “If that is the case, I ask that you answer the question.”

“Who I am, you mean?” 

“Indeed.”

He blinked and for a brief moment considered lying to the creature, but then, what reason would he have for doing so? Self-preservation, sure, but who else would he even say he was? John Johnson?

So, taking a deep breath in, he answered, “I am Sean Ono Lennon. And now if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to know who you are.”

“Ah! The son of the quartermaster, are you?” The bird chuckled to itself. “I’m not surprised, you look just like him. Now were you born to the milkmaid or the widow, dear? I’m afraid I can no longer remember.”

“The widow,” he confirmed. “My mother was the captain of the  _ Sgt. Pepper _ .”

“Certainly, certainly…”

Swallowing once, Sean asked, “Did you ever know my father?”

The bird, as if it were undecided, tilted its head back and forth. 

“I do know him,” it finally spoke. “John, that is. Although I will admit, we were never awfully close.”

The baker’s face fell like paper to the ground. 

It knew him, he thought.

That was something, wasn’t it?

But it wasn’t enough.

He felt a lump form in his throat, a heavy sort of nodule that wouldn’t disappear. And on his cheeks, he felt a hostile warmth. 

He wasn’t upset, he thought. What reason did he have to be upset? 

He knew. 

It was the fact that his hypothesis, as it pertained to the bird’s identity, his ivory logic, as it’s been dubbed, had just been proven wrong.

For if the bird had only  _ known  _ his father, and even then rather poorly, the chances that it  _ was _ his father were very, very slim.

So why did it disappoint him so much? 

It shouldn’t have. 

But it did!

He chose not to think about it, assigning it as a problem for his future self to deal with, and sighed.

Unfortunately, the ignorance of such a problem only led to a greater one. 

The bird had just said it was never very close to his father, which, considering the only other candidate for its identity—Ethelein, that is—was a downright lie. The two had had  _ carnal relations _ , for goodness sake! 

Now, you must take a moment here and be empathetic. Say you were the young baker’s apprentice, and in front of you was the (now very vocal)  _ sje’inn’a’e _ . Considering the above, you would certainly like to point out the inconsistencies in the bird’s story. But this bird is the same one responsible for your brother’s near death. So you would be taking quite a risk in calling it a liar.

What do you do?

Well, the clever thing to do, which perhaps you may have reasoned, is to phrase your accusation in the form of a question, and thus, kill two birds with one stone.

This was the same conclusion Sean reached, and so instead of saying the bird could not be the sea witch Ethelein, not with the claim it was not close to his father, he simply asked it if it was. 

And here it stumbled. 

“I’m afraid I don’t know, dear.” it answered with sad eyes. “I’m not quite sure who I am. Or, for that matter, why I’m here in the first place. Or where this is!”

Sean bit his lip. “It’s Strawberry Fields,” he muttered.

“As in the song?”

“ Apparently…”

The bird blinked. “I was not aware such a place truly existed.”

“Well, this is actually the second.”

“The second Strawberry Fields?” it asked, confused.

“Indeed,” the young man sighed. “The first is in Liverpool, apparently.”

With this bird began to grow worried. “So then… where are we? If we aren’t in Liddypol.”

“It’s Liverpool, actually.”

“Of course, just—where are we?”

“New York City,” Sean answered. “We are just outside of my mother’s house.” 

“New York City…” the bird repeated. “I’ve only ever been twice.”

Here Sean saw an opportunity.

He was going to catch the bird in its own lies.

“On my mother’s ship?” he asked. “Were you docked here?”

“Nay,” it answered calmly. “Never.”

“So then how did you get here?”

“I don’t remember.”

Sean began to grow impatient. The bird wouldn’t put up with his tricks, it seemed.

“Do you at least remember why you came?”

The bird thought about that, its head swaying back and forth as it did so.

“The first time was for something little,” it said. “I held something little in my arms, something warm.”

“And the second time?”

“It was cold,” the dove began. “and everything was black.” 

It froze.

Before Sean had the chance to ask what it was doing, it whispered, “And the quartermaster was dead.”

The young man frowned. “You were there,” he murmured. “Weren’t you?”

The bird said nothing.

“You stood right there,” Sean continued. “And you stared at my brother and I. It was him who pointed you out. I thought you were a nice little bird.”

“A bird?” The creature asked, alarmed.

“Aye…”

“I was not a bird!”

Sean wasn’t sure how to answer that. 

“You are now,” he stammered. “Aren’t you, sir?”

“I was not a bird!” it repeated, growing more frustrated by the second. “And for that matter I was not a  _ sir _ , either.”

The young man flushed. “My apologies, madam! I had no idea—”

He paused. 

If the bird was a woman—or at some point, had been one… then it was not his father at all.

His eyes grew wide.

If such a thing was to be believed, then it was not even Ethelein.

“Who are you?” he asked in a terrified whisper. 

“I already told you, dear, I kn—”

His cheeks flaming, the young man found himself unable to use his voice to the fullest extent as he screeched, “For the love of God, who are you?!” 

The bird backed away.

For the first time in its… life, it was afraid of him. 

He was no longer its protector.

He was its aggressor.

Sean recognized this, and so softened his demeanor, apologizing wildly for having scared the poor thing. 

It was just a dove, he thought. It was a nice little dove with no way of knowing what was right or wrong, and he had frightened it. 

It didn’t know it was making him angry. 

It didn’t even do anything wrong, in the end. 

He was just stressed, and so had taken it out on something smaller than him.

Weakened by the realization, he slumped to his knees in the snow, his eyes downcast. 

He didn’t even care if his spectacles fell off of his face. 

“I didn’t mean to—” 

He cut himself off.

Yes he did.

He had chosen to yell at the bird, and in doing so, he had chosen to scare it. 

Ashamed, he held a hand over his face. 

“I’m sorry…” he whispered.

Across from him, the dove was confused by the sight. 

Its talons were planted staggered in the snow, one close to the young man, wanting to reach out to him, and the other drawn away from him.

It wasn’t sure what to do.

But then, as rationality won the war, at least for a brief moment, and the bird’s mind rebuilt itself in jade, it realized it had no choice but to help him.

After all, the sight was painfully familiar.

With a gentle, almost sad expression, the bird cooed and fluttered over to the young man, landing squarely on his lap.

It was a strange feeling to Sean, to have the bird leaning up against his torso, but it was nice. It was trying its hardest, anyway.

“I should not have scared you,” he sighed. “Although you must understand… This is a rather emotionally charged issue. Or, at least— I mean… not for me, but for other people. Perhaps.”

The bird said nothing, its eyes shut tight against the young man’s shirt.

Sean smiled. “You’re a nice little thing, you know that?” 

The creature chirped in response.

“Yeah, you are.”

It was nice to know that the young man liked the bird, although it saw no reason why he wouldn’t. 

So, having assumed that all was well and good between the two, the dove lifted itself into the air and planted itself on Sean’s head, if only to find a vantage point of the clearing.

And as the young man laughed, surprised by the creature’s actions, the bird became very afraid.

Its mind turned to amethyst. 

For in front of its eyes, just at the edge of the clearing, it saw a tough, dried-up plant, and hanging off of its stalk were two branches, each with three plump, golden berries that shone in the light of the sun.

Immediately, it flew over towards them, squawking its little head off as it soared through the wintry air. 

“What is it?” Sean asked, turning around to look for the dove.

Resting its talons on one of the branches, and being very careful, so as not to snap it from the plant, the creature screeched at the fruits. 

It knew not why it was afraid, but it knew with all the certainty on Earth that it should have been. 

Now, the funny thing about this all is that that feeling, certainty without precognition, if you will, was one the bird knew very,  _ very  _ well. It was what drove it forward, actually. What had brought it to New York, even.

But it had only ever felt it once before. 

And even then, it had better reasoning to be afraid. 

So even it was confused as to why it was suddenly terrified of the berries.

“Sir! Or… or madam, I suppose…” Sean flushed. “It matters not! Just tell me, what is wrong?”

The bird scratched at the berries with one of its talons and was utterly disgusted to find them soft, overripe, even. 

Bright yellow pulp oozed from the scratch, leaching seeds onto the forest floor and causing the dove to begin squawking away in terror, its head reared back from the fruit.

As it lurched forward onto Sean’s hand, the young man took a step back. 

The bird was trying to wipe the pulp off of its foot—an effort which unfortunately involved it wiping the goo onto Sean’s glove.

“Oh, don’t do that!” he scolded. “I just bought those in October!”

The dove ignored him.

That fruit was made of pure evil, and the creature didn’t want anything to do with it.

Sean sighed. He wasn’t going to get anywhere. The bird just couldn’t be reasoned with. It was as if it had completely forgotten how to speak.

“It’s only horsenettle,” he said. “Perfectly fine, so long as you don’t try to eat it. Or, you know, scratch it like that… but you cannot smell anyways, can you? Yeah, be thankful for that.”

And thankful the bird should have been.

See, the pulp of the horsenettle berry was widely known across the colonies for its horrible and extremely strong scent, one almost reminiscent of a potato—if said potato had been left by its lonesome in the sun for about nine days, surrounded by the bodies of lepers.

So to be unable to smell the fruit… It was certainly a blessing.

Ah, to be a bird, Sean thought.

Still on his hand, the bird finally seemed to have gotten all of the pulp off of its talon, and while the thought brought it some comfort, it still could not shake the feeling that something was very wrong with the berries. 

It just wished it knew what.

The conflict at last being settled, Sean decided to take a look into the mirror.

It was a perfect plum, the same as it had been when he and Julian had seen their father inside. But of course, Julian was nowhere to be seen, leaving only emptiness.

He sighed. 

And then, with a rush of white feathers, the bird planted itself atop his shoulder, bending its neck down to see the looking glass for itself.

The looking glass, it thought. Its greatest contemporary accomplishment.

It wondered how the company was liking it. 

Sean jumped, finding the bird so close to his face, but quickly reconciled with the fact on account of it being an opportunity.

See, since the dove had very clearly seen the mirror, there was no way it could ignore any question about it, and since the two of them were in the woods, there was nothing Sean could stab it with.

These facts, combined with the solitary of the clearing, allowed for the most opportune moment for the young man to ask:

“What is it for, anyways?”

The bird leaped onto the sea glass. 

Sean looked into its eyes, swearing to no one but himself that he would not leave the clearing until he had gotten an answer.

“What is the looking glass for?” he repeated.

The creature nodded atop the mirror, chirped once in an even tone, and then, much to the baker’s surprise, flew high up into the air, darting away towards the west as it rode the winter winds. 

Sean’s jaw fell wide open.

“Sir?!” he cried, shocked. “Madam?!”

The bird, although it really was trying to answer his question, was unfortunately too far above him to hear him.

But remembering his promise to himself, Sean knew he couldn’t give up so easily.

Which is why, on that fateful Tuesday evening, as day gave way to night, the witches’ son could be seen scrambling through the forest and town, fast on the heels of the dove, and screaming all the while for it to wait for him.

He could only imagine what the townspeople thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy (Almost) Birthday Ringo peace and love 🕉❤️🎶🌺🌟☮️🌈✨


	35. Twenty Years and Five Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sean and Julian discuss the bird.

“Sean, you’ve got to get that thing out of here.”

“But it—”

“It wasn’t a question.”

Needless to say, Julian was not amused by the bird’s sudden appearance in the foyer.

Sean, however, was absolutely unrelenting in its staying. He hadn’t run through the town in the dark and on a number of occasions nearly gotten himself lost for nothing, after all.

If the bird had led him back to his house, he figured, then in his house it would stay. It was better than having it abandon him completely.

And while on the subject of the bird, it was busy perpetuating the War of the Roses—or perhaps the War of the Strawberries. Either one worked.

It stood right in front of the wall, basking in both the warmth of the hearth and its own genius. Aside from the looking glass, which Sean noted still shone as though it were made of amethyst, the roses were its favorite gift to the company. 

The strawberries, on the other hand, were among its most despised, or more aptly, its  _ only  _ despised gift. 

They were a mistake of sorts, an error that should never have seen the light of day.

But light they did see, through no work of the bird’s, at least as it was in the current moment. And light they would continue to see, as the creature knew that by the very nature of the plants they could not be destroyed.

Still, that didn’t mean it couldn’t try.

Which is why among arguments and rebuttals from the men behind it, the bird began to scratch away at the fruits the same way it had with the horsenettle berries earlier.

It was, after all, a satisfactory answer to Sean’s question.

“Out you go,” Julian sighed, advancing towards the pigeon.

“Julian, you do not understand—”

“I understand perfectly well.”

“It  _ spoke  _ to me!”

This gave the longshoreman pause.

With a furrowed brow and frightened eyes, he sat down on the sofa, not breaking eye contact with Sean as he stepped backwards.

“What did it say?” he asked in a whisper.

“So many things,” the young man answered, removing his hat and cloak. “By God, it was astounding! It was not even speaking phrases, nay, we  _ conversed _ .”

“How on Earth did you…”

“I’m not sure.” Sean ran his hand through his hair. “But there’s something very strange happening, something much more complex than any of us know.”

He shook his head. “It spoke to me!” he cried. 

“And what did it say?” Julian asked.

“Well, I asked it who it was, you know. And what it said was that it had never been very close to Father.”

“That’s a lie.”

“It is!” Sean said, exuberant.

He had fallen in love with some new conspiracy, it seemed. Julian braced himself. “For it disproves both ideas of it being either Ethelein or Father! So what did I do about this? I decided to ask it, ‘Are you the sea witch Ethelein?’ and it said it was unsure. But what it  _ did  _ say was that it had been to New York twice, and, here’s the thing, the second time was for Father’s funeral.”

Julian blinked. “I thought we’d already established that.”

“We had, but you know what?”

Julian knew better than to answer such questions, so that left Sean to continue, “I mentioned this, and it told me it was not a bird, it was a  _ woman _ .”

The longshoreman’s face contorted. 

“No,” he said. “That couldn’t be…”

Sean nodded. “I know. Or, really,” he laughed. “I suppose I do not. But… I see no reason why it would lie about such a fact.”

“Well, then—” Julian stammered. “Who could it be?” 

“I’ve not a clue.”

Finally, the bird managed to knock a single strawberry off of the wall. As it landed in the hearth, it let out a pleased (albeit manic) chirp of victory.

Sean sighed. “It can no longer speak, not from what I’ve seen, anyway.”

“Why is that?” Julian asked.

“Again, I’ve no idea.” The young man crossed his arms. “It’s as though its personality is split… One moment it can speak and the next it can only wail.”

“Right…”

With that, the bird’s mind turned to jade. 

The tide turned in the war, and as the looking glass, stuffed deep into the abyss that was Sean’s pocket, changed along with it, the creature began to redirect its attention on the roses, trying its hardest to knock them off of the wall.

“You see what I mean?” The young man asked, exhausted from having run so much that evening.

Julian nodded. “We ought speak to Macca about this. He’ll know what to make of it.”

Sean laughed. “If the bird doesn’t get to him first!”

The older man smirked, and next to him, Sean began to move towards the hearth. Towards the bird.

“What on Earth are you doing, madam?” he asked, grinning.

The bird turned mid-air to meet his eye and drew its head back, confused.

“Do you not like the roses?” Sean elaborated.

It wasn’t sure exactly how to answer that.

It wasn’t necessarily that it did not like them, it just needed its strawberries alone on the wall. 

Or maybe it didn’t, it thought. All it really needed was for the men to take note of them, and, if they were so clever, to figure out why they were there.

In this it held faith solely in Sean. Julian could, theoretically speaking,  _ do it _ , but the chance was much smaller.

Regardless, in response to the question of whether or not it liked the roses, the bird remained silent.

And Sean seemed to be more or less fine with this, simply choosing not to pester the creature and instead focusing his attention on the plump red berries spread before his eyes. 

It was a very unusual thing to find ripe strawberries in the winter—unheard of, even. 

And seeing as how the young man was so awfully fond of the fruits, he reached out his hand to pluck one from the vine. 

“Sean!” Julian cried.

The young man snapped to attention.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m—” Sean laughed nervously. “I’m eating the strawberries?”

His brother’s face slackened, utterly defeated. 

“Do I need to tell you a second time why that is one of the most unintelligent ideas I have ever heard?”

The younger man crossed his arms. “If there are  _ fresh  _ strawberries—”

“Fresh  _ magical  _ strawberries,” Julian corrected.

“On my wall—”

“Brought to existence by a demonic bird,”

“In the dead of winter—”

“Who, might I remind you, literally tried to  _ drown  _ me,”

“And just in time for Christmas—”

Julian drew his head back. “Since when do you care for the birth of the Lord?”

Sean sighed. “All I mean to say is that I would be a fool not to preserve them for a Christmas pie.”

“And all  _ I  _ mean to say is that if you do so, you shall surely kill us all.”

With this, as he enjoyed muddling his brother’s mind, Sean pulled one of the berries off of the wall and stuffed it in his awaiting mouth. 

“ _ Sean Lennon— _ ”

“Ono Lennon,” the young man corrected through bites of the blood red fruit.

Its flesh was soft, not soft enough that it was overripe, but just enough that a bite of it was very texturally pleasant.

And it was sweet—remarkably so. It was a kind of sweetness that set the mouth aflame, a taste so pure it allured him who ate it like a fly to honey. 

But sweet as it was, it was also perfectly tart and almost sour, its juices buzzing and stinging upon Sean’s lips in a perfectly splendid and dare I say orgasmic way. 

He tossed his head back in bliss.

Julian took this as a sign that he had poisoned himself, and so stood ramrod straight on the wooden floor, his eyebrows raised to heaven and his pupils as small as pinholes. 

“Sean?” he cried, frantic. “Sean?!”

The young man, without warning, much to Julian’s dismay, reached out his arm to grab onto his brother’s shoulder, as though he were a man raised from the dead.

Julian stepped back at the feeling, ever uncomfortable with gestures of such physicality, but was relieved to see the young man was still alive.

“You must try one of these,” Sean exclaimed.

The older man stepped away from his touch, his arms tossed in the air and his foot tapping on the ground as he said, “No way in hell.”

“You have never lived,” Sean protested. “Until you have tasted a strawberry such as this.”

“And you, young man,” Julian chuckled. “Will soon cease to live.”

The younger man shook his head. “You sound like my mother…”

“Heaven forbid it.”

At this a brief silence rang out between the two, and having nothing else to say, Sean turned to the bird, who had by that point succeeded in knocking two whole roses from the wall. 

“What say you, s… madam?” he asked. “Are your strawberries safe to eat?”

The bird turned to him, and fed up with the young man’s antics, hissed as it perched upon his shoulder.

“I think that’s a no,” Julian sighed.

“Come on,” Sean urged, removing another one of the fruits from above his fireplace. “Won’t you just try one?”

“The only way that thing’s getting in me mouth is if you pry it in posthumously.”

“Alright then,” the young man muttered, not expecting such a bleak answer. “Guess it’s going to you, madam.”

The bird, again annoyed with Sean’s choice of words, stomped on his shoulder. It was beginning to get angry with him, its patience slowly dwindling, but was quickly dismayed from any further action when it caught a glimpse of its favorite fruit in front of its now widening eyes.

“Would you like to take a bite?” Sean asked.

The dove nodded a series of rapid-fire nods, a high-pitched, excited squeal escaping its beak.

It had been so long since it had tasted the unbridled sweetness of even a single berry, far too long. 

So it wasted no time in tilting its head, extending it just enough that its beak pressed into the flesh of the fruit, and biting into its seedy exterior.

“Well, there we go!” Julian jeered as the bird munched. “Someone go and fetch Macca; tell him we sent it back to hell!”

“Oh, always with the cynicism…” Sean sighed.

“I’m a longshoreman,” the older man protested. “There are only two things I can do, and they’re swearing and being cynical.”

“Then perhaps you should not let yourself be defined by your profession.”

A silence fell like fog between the brothers, and then, his mind circling back to the earlier events of the evening, Sean asked, “Who do you think it could be?”

Julian furrowed his brow. “The bird?” 

“Aye.”

The older man took a long minute to think. “Well,” he finally answered. “Everything it has done so far would imply it is a  _ sje’inn’a’e _ , which I remind you must always be a sea witch.”

“So Ethelein?” Sean asked, disappointed.

Julian flushed. “Is that not the right answer?”

“It’s not that it’s wrong,” the young man sighed. “In fact, it is a point that is very worthwhile to make. But it did say it was a woman.”

“Well, then, who do you think it is?” Julian asked, mentally and emotionally preparing himself for the rant that would certainly follow such a question. 

Surprisingly, however, no rant came, as Sean simply answered, “A woman, most likely.”

“And one at Father’s funeral.”

The young man furrowed his brow. “Well, that would just be my mother, wouldn’t it?”

“Not necessarily,” Julian answered. “Madam Pang was there as well. She was one of the women on the ship. And Iyera—Macca’s wife, essentially. Although she was a painter, not a magician.” He paused. “But could it ever be any one of them?”

Turning to the bird on his shoulder, who was now content to eat the dry leaves of the strawberry, Sean said, “That’s a question for it, I’m afraid.”

“Very well then,” Julian replied, walking towards the creature. “Who are you, you little devil?”

“Julian!”

The bird seemed not to mind the longshoreman’s term of endearment—truthfully, it had been expecting it. 

But it was unable to answer the question in its current form, and so, with a mind rebuilt in regal amethyst, it squawked and fluttered in front of Sean, scratching at his coat pocket with its claws.

“Oh!” the young man realized. “The looking glass!”

Digging into the pocket, he pulled out a purple mirror, and as both men peered inside, their gazes were met by the glassy eyes of their late father.

This immediately caused Sean to assume the bird was indicating it was said late father in a sort of desperate final attempt to confirm his hypothesis, but before he could ask such a thing, the bird hopped onto the looking glass.

It chirped once, its eyes fixated on the left side of Julian’s britches. 

He swallowed. “Are you—”

Again, it chirped, louder this time, and with more authority. 

Sean took this as confirmation.

“Are you John?”

Ignoring the question, as it was ultimately useless, the pigeon leapt towards the man, landing perfectly on the handle of his dagger, hidden away as always in its sheath.

It wriggled and squirmed atop the weapon in what Julian could only assume was an attempt to take hold of it.

“Oh dear God!” the man cried.

It took Sean a moment to figure out what was happening. “Madam?! Sir?! Um, you are going to have to put that down!”

The dove simply hissed at him and continued in its valiant effort to take the knife.

Meanwhile, Julian was busy trying to shoo the creature away from the weapon, hitting it repeatedly in the face and torso with his clammy hand.

He wasn’t sure what it would do once it got the dagger, but he couldn’t imagine it was good. So he had no choice but to fight back.

The bird did not appreciate this in the slightest, nor did it understand why it was happening. 

“Get back you beast!” the longshoreman screeched. 

Sean, to his right, begged the dove to leave Julian alone, and instead offered it a place upon his hand, should it choose to do so.

It ignored him, however, and so Julian left as the decisive winner of the skirmish after managing to push the bird back onto the looking glass.

It whined as its feet touched the cool crystal, right above John’s neck.

Determined to never let such a thing happen again, Julian then removed his dagger from its sheath. He did not point it at the creature, of course, but he nevertheless held tight onto its handle, his knuckles growing pale as he did so.

And at the sight of the metal, the pigeon’s eyes widened.

It chirped excitedly.

Here Julian began to understand. 

It was his father in the looking glass.

It was his father underneath those feathers.

His cheeks flamed, his brain spun in his skull. 

It was his father that cared for Sean and tossed him aside. 

How typical.

“Why did you do  _ that _ ?” Sean asked, disappointed in the bird. 

Julian let out a grunt, his chest heaving. “‘Cause he can’t stand me, that’s why...”

“What? No, that cannot be—”

The longshoreman felt his blood boil. Of course Sean was going to be the one to deny his lived experience. The man had been fed nothing but lies by his mother. And not only that, John was good to him. 

That boy knew nothing of the world.

“Are you truly turning against your own pet theory?” Julian shouted. “For- for no reason other than the fact that you’ve been lied to?”

Sean furrowed his brow. “I don’t understand…”

“All this damn time,” Julian spat. “You were the one that would never change his mind!  _ You  _ were the one pedaling around your theory that John is the bird!  _ You  _ were the one that wouldn’t believe anything else! Not when the evidence was two inches from your face!”

The young man’s pupils grew small, his cheeks red-hot. 

“And hell, I didn’t believe you! God, I was a fool… I got tossed in the river, I was made to fight with… Good God, with  _ Yoko _ , and now that thing tried to  _ stab me… _ ”

“What are you saying?” Sean asked in a whisper.

“Of course it was John!” Julian cried, manic. “It was him all along! He got along with you, he gave you roses and strawberries, and in the meantime, I got tossed in the fuckin’ river and nearly died!

“And now…” he fumed. “Now look at us! Now you’re the one denying your own theory, and why?”

It was a rhetorical question.

“I’ll tell you why, it’s because you’ve been lied to!”

“How?!”

“You want to believe he was a good person—no, not even you!  _ Yoko  _ wants you to believe it!”

“What the hell does my mother have to do with any of this?” Sean cried.

“She _ lied to you _ , Sean! She made you think he was a martyr, didn’t she?”

“He was never—”

“Well, you know what? He wasn’t! He was a hot-headed jackass who ditched his family on a whim, and then had the audacity to- to—”

He was breaking down.

The bird could do nothing but sit and watch, confused.

“I  _ know _ that!” the young man shouted. “That’s what I’ve been trying to say, and if you would just—”

“No you don’t! You never have and you are never going to, because Yoko turned him into a martyr! She’s been lying to you, don’t you get it?”

“For the love of God, yes I do!”

“You—”

“How do you think I went deaf in my right ear?”

“What?”

“I’ve been deaf in my right ear nearly all my life. How do you think it happened?”

Julian faltered. “I- I was not aware it did,”

“Well, I’ll tell you what, it wasn’t my fault. It was his.”

He paused. 

“I _know_ he wasn’t a saint, Julian. You’ve told me so yourself, and for heaven’s sake, I’ve seen it!”

The longshoreman stared at his boots, his face marked with shame. 

“God,” he whispered. “I’m… I’m so sorry.”

Sean sighed. “It’s alright. Let’s just focus on the bird for right now, yeah? John’s dead.”

Julian nodded without a word, too wrapped in guilt and anger and whatever else it was he was feeling to disagree. 

So finally, the two turned back to the bird, who was watching them with wide eyes, enchanted and yet somehow utterly confused by their conversation.

“Are you John?” Sean croaked.

The dove shook its head, baffled by why he would even think that.

The young man shut his eyes tight. “Then we’ve nothing to worry about.”

“So, then…” Julian began, trying his best to distract himself from the cloud of indescribable emotion that surrounded him. “Who are you?”

To answer that, the creature had to do two things. First, it tapped its talon on the mirror.

This only served to confuse the man. 

“But that’s John,” he said.

The bird nodded and then, enacting the remainder of its plan, craned its neck out in the direction of Julian’s right hand.

He turned to look at it and was surprised to find he was still holding the knife.

Then, in just the same way it had a number of days before, the pigeon poked at its own chest with the beak.

“It wants you to stab it,” Sean muttered. 

Julian swallowed the lump in his throat. “Well, I’m not going to do  _ that _ .”

The bird cried out in protest, but before it could even try to explain itself, its mind turned to sapphire, thus changing the mirror along with it.

And at the sight of the dagger, it panicked, adrenaline coursing through its veins as it rushed towards the window.

“ _ Ingho _ !” it cried. “ _ Ingho _ ?”

Its body smashed against the glass with a horrible  _ smack, _ one that caused Sean physical pain to hear. 

He rushed over to it, surprised to find it perfectly well. Sure, it may have bumped its head quite hard, and its wing hurt like nothing else on Earth, but that didn’t matter to the dove. There were more pressing matters on its mind.

“ _ Ingho _ !  _ Ingho _ !” 

It tapped furiously at the window, deranged.

Sean turned slowly to Julian. 

“Do I…”

“Just let it out.”

The young man nodded, and with some force, pried open the exit, from which the bird promptly flew away. 

A gust of freezing wind blew into the room, sending Sean’s hair and coat flying every which way. 

“Goodbye,” he murmured. “Whoever you are.”

Sean poured a cup of sugar in the jar.

He and Julian had made up quite some time ago, with Julian taking full responsibility for the outburst, and repeating his condolences far too many times.

The argument bothered Sean to no end, for though he was not at all fond of other people assuming what he did and did not know, he did not have much of his own to refer to on the matter of his father.

Still, he could not hold a grudge against his brother.

He poured a handful of strawberries into the jar.

But there was one thing more pressing than the argument, and now that Julian was asleep, and Sean was caught in the mundane task of preserving the strawberries on his wall, he was forced to think about it. 

Put simply, as straight and to the point as it could be, this was the cold truth that haunted him:

The bird was not his father.

He sprinkled some raisins into the jar.

It shouldn’t have bothered him, that he established long ago.

But it did, and he wanted to know why.

He thought for a moment that his disgruntlement was simply the product of his hypothesis being proven wrong, but he knew subconsciously that that was not the case.

So then what was?

He poured a cup of sugar into the jar.

Well, he thought, he was upset because the bird was not his father. And although he didn’t want to admit it, it was true. 

So did that imply that he had wanted the dove in the rosebox to be John? 

He begged to differ with that; he couldn’t care much whether the man was with him or not.

He sighed and poured a handful of strawberries into the jar. 

Now, that’s not to say that he had never cared for the man. He had, certainly. 

For even if he hadn’t been there for Julian, he was there for him, at least most of the time, and in Sean’s mind, that was reason enough to care about him. 

So he did care about him—that was for sure.

But the keyword there is  _ did _ , as in, when he was a boy.

He sprinkled some raisins into the jar.

Since then, of course, his father had died, and along with him died, or rather expired, Sean’s obligation to care about him.

It was no longer his duty. 

His duty was to get on with his life. John had died, and that couldn’t be helped. But that didn’t mean that Sean had to act as if it was him who was dead. 

Of course, his mother had taken a bit of an alternative route in her grief, and for quite a while, Sean had wondered if she too had died.

And that wasn’t a bad thing, that she struggled so much. That was expected.

He poured a cup of sugar into the jar.

But as the new man of the house, the burden fell on him to lift her out of her misery.

And he did.

And he was extremely proud of it.

Of course, he thought,  _ man of the house  _ was a rather generous way to phrase it. He had only been five years old, unable to read or write.

So then, was it really his duty to care for his mother?

He poured a handful of strawberries into the jar.

No one else would have done it.

But why did it have to be him?

If he knew not how to read, surely he was unequipped to counsel his newly-widowed mother.

And yet he did.

But at what cost, he wondered.

The thought disturbed him greatly. He hadn’t felt as though he had lost anything in doing so.

But he did, didn’t he?

He sprinkled some raisins into the jar.

He poured a cup of sugar into the jar.

He poured a handful of strawberries into the jar.

And he repeated this pattern over and over again; he was a strawberry-preserving madman.

Until finally, at the end of the night, standing in front of three jars, he had figured it out.

In the course of aiding his mother at the time of his father’s death, he had lost the chance to grieve him. 

It didn’t matter what he felt about the whole thing, his mother’s feelings had always more important.

He had carried that sentiment for twenty years and five days.

He had wasted twenty goddamn years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed that I’ve been referring to Julian as the one with bad hearing. This may or may not be because I am a big dumb-dumb and confused the two of them. 
> 
> Also I don’t actually know the extent of Sean Ono Lennon’s hearing loss, I’m just going out on a limb here.


	36. The Unacknowledged Ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kyoko creates a rather interesting situation through her cooking, leading to some uncouth and quite tragic events.

The porridge and beans were cold; Dhani could tell just by looking at them. Not cold in the same way as the air outside, but cold for food.

The spread before him, although incomplete, was a far cry from the breakfasts he had enjoyed (and taken severely for granted) in Madras. Although if there was anything the young Sir Harrison could take comfort in, it was the fact that he was no longer on the sea, and as such, could enjoy more than stale biscuits and peas.

That, of course, and the hot plate of eggs he was waiting on from the women in the other room. Not to mention the tea.

He and his father sat across from one another in the center of the table, the expectation being that Yoko would choose her seat next to George, and Kyoko next to Dhani.

It was a simple arrangement, a mundane sort of thing, but in the three weeks since the company had all assembled, it had become standard practice for breakfast, lunch, and dinners held Monday through Saturday, unless of course the mermen, or very occasionally Sean or Julian, decided to join the four.

But mundane as it began, it soon became clear that the breakfast was anything but normal.

It all began when George found himself at a loss in his conversation with Yoko. The two had spoken for quite some time on the upcoming Christmas festivities, George citing that the holiday was only ten days away.

This left Dhani, for the most part, anyway, to simply sit in his chair, stare at the beans, and twiddle his thumbs, which, granted, he took no issue with. 

Kyoko was busy in the other room, working diligently at scrambling the eggs as the heat of the hearth caused her face to wince, her eyes squinting and just barely lifting in the corners as she stirred the pot.

So two were silent, and two were speaking.

Although, considering neither of those speaking were explicitly Christian, and Yoko had developed strong feelings of resentment for the winter holiday, they quickly found themselves out of matters to speak of.

Which then left four silent.

George could not stand this, for in spite of his natural reserved manner, he was deeply uncomfortable being unable to say anything of meaning.

So, of course, he turned to Dhani to solve this problem, his throat clearing as he asked, “How did you sleep last night, love?”

The young man met his eye. “About as well as I’ve been,” he sighed.

“Truly?”

“Aye.”

George frowned at such a response. “Did you sleep at all?”

“Of course,” Dhani nodded. “But not restfully.”

“So are you still fatigued, then? Sleep-deprived?”

The man’s son blinked. “I’ve learned to manage, Father. You needn’t worry.”

“Ah,” the old man shook his head. “That won’t do at all, I’m afraid. It’s simply impossible for me not to.”

“I’m sure that isn’t true.”

“And I am sure it is,” George declared. “Now— I’m sure a good bowl of porridge will do you some good. Porridge and beans.”

Dhani frowned. 

He knew what his father was doing; it was a subtle way of telling the young man that he had no choice to eat, even if he found himself without an appetite.

And while the old man certainly had a point in telling him to do so, Dhani had gotten rather sick of hearing it.

It must have been the twenty-thousandth time, he thought, that he had heard, in some form, a demand to eat disguised as simple encouragement.

But he was just thankful it was his father doing it and not his mother. If it were her, the demand would have been much more direct, more uncompromising, her tone coming through somehow just as boldly in English as it did in French or Spanish.

In the kitchen, Kyoko was taking great care not to burn the eggs, her mother’s watchful eye behind her.

She had just barely begun cooking them, but the fire was hot, well-stocked with logs from the past spring, which Sean had spent a great deal of time chopping, and so the eggs were setting nicely.

Still, she couldn’t remove them from the heat too soon, lest she wish to serve Sir Harrison and his son an undercooked breakfast. But in the same respect, she couldn’t allow them to cook too long, or else they would burn, their texture more resembling a sponge than anything a hen would ever lay.

It was a rather tricky thing, really.

And Yoko’s gaze did not make anything easier.

“Make haste,” she said. “The tea will soon be cold.”

Her daughter flushed under her criticism, her stomach filling with acid.

She was stressed enough as it was, what with the status of the eggs, which she had to make sure was  _ just right _ , and along with that, her mother had suddenly taken to condemning her cooking.

Not to mention the blood seeping into her shift, and with her luck, also onto the floor, the probable cause of her undue reactionary nature.

So, shaking her head in sheer frustration, she removed the pot from the hearth with a rag and dumped the eggs, thankfully set, onto a plate.

“Kyoko,” Yoko began.

The woman, however, ignored her, and in a moment of what was pure foolishness on her part, which she would very quickly come to regret, held the hot plate of eggs atop her left hand, and the teapot in her right.

“Kyoko!”

The crash was swift as the monsoon rains, and to Dhani, louder than thunder.

“God almighty!” George cried in alarm.

As curses and apologies were exchanged, tea was cleaned and eggs were swept off of the floor, Dhani sat motionless in his chair.

His breathing picked up.

His hands began to shake.

His muscles grew sore, his shoulders and neck tense to high heaven, his brain feeling as though it would collapse on itself.

And in a single instant, he was back in Madras.

He saw, not out of his own eyes, but from his mind’s, his dark bedchamber, the winter moon illuminating his vanity.

And just outside of the room, he knew, down the stairs, were his mother and father, fighting for their lives between the shouts and the sound of breaking porcelain. 

Dhani had to get away. He had to run, he had to hide.

If he didn’t, he rather irrationally rationalized, he would be killed. 

Tears streaming down his cheeks, anything but blissfully ignorant of Yoko’s puzzled eyes staring at him, the young man pushed his chair out with a squeak.

His legs shook as he stood up; it was as if an earthquake was running down his spine and through his every muscle.

“George,” Yoko said in a hushed tone, her eyes not moving from the young man’s figure.

The old Sir Harrison turned to her.

“What is he doing?”

George felt his stomach drop as his eyes fell upon Dhani.

The young man was crying, his cheeks flushed, his shaking hands gripped over his mouth.

His father grew pale. 

“He- he does this…” he muttered. “I-”

In staggered steps, Dhani darted out of the dining room, into what was, in his mind, his wardrobe.

George stood upright, desperately calling out to him as he rushed after him into the parlor.

He couldn’t let the young man slip through his fingers. He couldn’t let his demons overtake him. 

And most importantly— he couldn’t let the others see his son’s affliction. The one person he trusted with such information was Ringo.

If knowledge of the young man’s strife reached the rest of them...

He wasn’t sure what he would do.

So he simply called out for his son, using his name as an anchor to ground him to the earth. 

This didn’t help the young man any, quite the opposite, in fact. 

He heard his name in a sort of muffled tone; it was far away, underwater, almost.

But hearing it at all frightened him to no end. 

It was his mother, he thought, she was calling for his help. She needed him.

But he couldn’t help her! He couldn’t move.

So what was he going to do? Leave his own mother dead, all because he was too much of a coward to do anything?

The tears flowed like rain from the heavens, cold and harsh, a punishment from God for mankind’s misdeeds.

All he could do was sit and wait for death to come to him. 

The young man was now curled in a ball in the corner of the parlor, seated diagonally from the harpsichord with his hands still cupped over his mouth.

“Dhani…” George urged, stepping carefully towards him. “Dhani, can you hear me?”

He was met with no response.

“Dhani, look at me, please…”

The young man could not. He could just barely hear the man, aware in a subconscious sense that he was speaking to him, but unable to make sense of his words or what they may have meant.

All he knew was his name. And he held onto it like gold, clinging to it in the dark as it cut into his skin with every mention.

He was going to leave his mother and father to die, and the last he’d ever hear from them would be the two of them calling out his name, pleading for help he was unable to provide.

“Dhani, for the love of God, snap out of it!” George was now growing visibly frustrated. And rightfully so, in his own mind. The poor boy looked like a fool, a young hound with the temperament of Romeo Montague cowering in the presence of no real threat. “Madams Beckett and Lennon are right in the other room!”

Here Yoko stepped away from her daughter’s mess, moving slowly and carefully towards the parlor door. 

It was open, just barely enough that she could see inside.

And upon seeing Dhani (or as much as she could behind the harpsichord) she frowned.

He was a wreck, an absolute madman reduced to a puddle of tears on the floor. He couldn’t understand what was happening around him, he was frozen in time.

Yoko’s heart went out to him.

She saw a bit—too much, even—of herself in him. And she knew that what he was going through, at least if it was what she thought, was like walking through hell and back.

“Lord have mercy…” Kyoko whispered.

Yoko shook her head, deliberating between reaching out to George and keeping silent, hidden away by the door.

If she did raise her voice, she thought, then George would never forgive her. 

He was a man that preferred to keep things to himself. Matters that pertained to him or his family  _ only  _ pertained to him and his family. 

So to insert herself into the situation… it was risky.

But then again, when had she ever done something that pleased George?

“What is wrong?” she asked, stepping into the room.

The old man, previously seated next to his son on the floor, stood, refusing to meet her eye.

“It does not concern you…” he muttered. 

Yoko was about to protest, but was interrupted when George reached out his hand to grab his son’s arm.

As soon as the pads of his fingers touched the young man’s sleeve, he screamed, a childish, helpless sort of sound that ended in staggered cries. 

“Dhani!” George shouted. 

Yoko held out her arm, treading further into the room.

“Be gentle with him,” she scolded. 

He shook his head. “For heaven’s sake, will you just leave this to me?”

“I cannot do that, George. This is my house, and—”

“Well, he’s  _ my son _ , isn’t he?”

It was all just noise to Dhani. Noise that only served to drive him deeper into his delusion.

He pressed his head into his knees, unable to control his breathing.

“I am only trying to help,” Yoko said, trying her best to keep level-headed.

“You can help by leaving this to me.”

“George, you have to be patient with him.”

“Who do you think you are?” the old man snapped. “You are not his mother! You are not some sort of…  _ priest _ ! So for the last time I will ask you: Will you  _ please  _ leave me to this? Me alone?”

Yoko frowned, deeply upset by his remarks, although understanding.

Without a word, or even so much as a nod, she resigned, stepping back into the kitchen.

Kyoko watched her intently.

“Grab a broom,” she sighed. “We have still got eggs to clean.”

It took a good two hours for George to convince Dhani to move, or, more accurately, it took two hours for George to be able to touch Dhani without him screaming and pushing him away.

He had managed to coax him out of the parlor, practically dragging him into the foyer by the arm, but of course, ran into another wall when the two of them approached the staircase.

Dhani had regained some sense of where he was, but especially after seeing his father covered in blood at the base of his staircase in Madras, he was not exactly eager to find himself in front of Madam Lennon’s.

He cried and tried to shrink into himself, but as always, his father wouldn’t have it, ignoring his protests completely as he led him into the guest bedchamber.

Upon entry, Dhani fell onto his bed, curling himself back into his little ball, his face beet-red as he shook his head over and over again.

George sat opposite of him with a long, drawn-out sigh.

His son winced.

He was tired of him. 

Dhani knew this; he had known it from the very beginning. Although it was beyond the shadow of a doubt that he was not in control of his antics, George was not fully convinced of such a fact, or at the very least, was having a difficult time admitting it.

The young man braced himself for whatever he was about to hear, his head as sore as his heart.

After a minute, George simply asked, “What happened?”

Dhani did not meet his eye as he opened his mouth to speak.

But still caught in between rationality and the overwhelming need to protect himself from a threat that did not exist any longer, he could not bring himself to say anything.

George frowned at this, repeating his question in a long, single breath.

The young man shook his head like a leaf in the winter wind.

He literally couldn’t speak. His mouth wouldn’t form the sounds.

“Dhani, I will not ask you a third time. You heard the question, now, didn’t you?”

He swallowed, a slight nod bobbing his head up and down.

“Very good,” George replied. “Now, what happened?”

“I- I….”

The old man tilted his head, ever patient.

Dhani shook his, unwilling and unable to say anymore.

“Do go on,” George urged. “You’ve plenty to say, I am sure.”

Frustrated with himself and left in shellshock, Dhani tucked his head into his knees, his eyes shut like doors to a palace as tears continued to caress his cheeks, stealing his breath and his sanity along with it.

“Have you had another vision?” the old man asked with a furrowed brow.

His son nodded slowly, his response obscured by his knees and hair.

“And what did you see?”

Dhani almost wanted to laugh at the question. He only ever saw one thing; George already should have known the answer. 

“I… It… y-you—”

He buried himself deeper into his knees. That was all he could bring himself to say, as if all of his energy had been sucked away from him. 

He was left a shell, a husk of his former self, devoid of any ability to speak or think. He felt nothing, his mind numb, and yet somehow could not stop the tears from flowing. 

And the worst part of it all, the part that bothered him the most, was that it wasn’t even his fault.

It wasn’t through any fault of his he was acting so unlike himself, more melodramatic than an opera singer and with an inability to speak or communicate.

Surely if it was, then it would be something he could control, something he could stop.

But it wasn’t. 

So then whose was it?

He didn’t have the time or energy to think about it, his father interrupting his line of thought with, “Did you see the stabbing?”

Dhani sighed, a meek confirmation just barely escaping his lips.

“Again?”

The young man nodded.

“How many times is that now?”

Dhani shook his head. He had lost count long ago.

“I do not understand… you had been doing so well!” George protested. “It had been… well, the last time was on the ship, wasn’t it? Back in August?”

His son winced. 

“I-It was,” he whispered.

“Oh, Lord, and in front of Madam Lennon?” The old man shook his head. “Acting like a child in that manner, for two hours...”

Dhani felt tears well in his eyes. He wanted to scream. For everything he had seen. Everything he had done. Everything his father thought of him. He wanted to scream until his lungs weakened and crippled, all air deflated from them and launched forth into space with a sky-piercing cry.

_ I could not have helped it _ , he wanted to shout.  _ It was not my fault! _

“You ought know better, Dhani. You are a smart young man, I know that! What do you think she thinks of us now, of our  _ family name _ ?” the old man continued. “What kind of message do you think you’re sending, lying on the floor like that, crying? What good does that do, all that drama?”

Dhani held back everything inside of him, the rising wave of sadness tucked deep down in his throat. 

George shook his head. “You can not allow this to keep happening. See a priest, love. Find a church, it matters not which kind. I just…”

The young man turned to him, his face long and sunken.

“I hate to see you like this,” his father sighed. “Your mother and I both. It isn’t easy for us, you know. Watching this.”

Dhani shut his eyes. He had known that forever, but he would keep hearing it forever and a day. It was simply a fact of life.

“You must be rid of your demons. You mustn’t allow them to take control of your soul.” Here the old man paused before continuing, “Have you been praying?”

Dhani nodded. 

He had been praying harder in the past year than he had been in his entire life.

“Very good,” George mumbled. “You keep that up. It’s a good habit…”

An uneasy silence stood invisibly between them—a horrible, unacknowledged ghost.

Its presence loomed large in the little guest bedchamber, sucking through its mouth all the air from the room, leaving no space in which words could fall. 

Words were its enemy, you see, contrary to all it stood for, all it existed to personify.

Dhani hated it with every bone in his body.

Coughing into his handkerchief, George stood up to leave. He managed to make his way to the door before turning back to his son, curled on the bed in an upright position, his hands trembling.

“Please go to church,” the old man whispered. 

And in the blink of an eye, George was gone.

But the ghost never left.


	37. Revelations 6:17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dhani pays a visit to an Anglican Church.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to NewtBlythe for helping me with the Spanish! Although we never really reached a perfect conclusion... 
> 
> Also you’ll notice that the creation of Nutopia happens two years earlier in this fic. This is because it’s my fan fiction and I get to control the timeline ✋😤🤚

The old woman in the marketplace had told Dhani that Reverend Abraham Thomas could be found in Trinity Church only under certain circumstances. Those circumstances, of course, included, but were not limited to the following: he had not been called to perform a person’s last rites, he had not been called to counsel anyone who seeked his advice, and he had not simply left his post at Trinity Church to go and wander through the town, the likes of which he had been spotted doing on several occasions.

So the young Sir Harrison’s only hope was that the reverend would be there when he stumbled into the church, taking in the plain white walls and stained glass as a shallow breath escaped his lips.

It was a sight much different from the elegantly decorated walls and domes of Our Lady of Light in Madras, and in comparison, quite bland. 

He would rather have found himself in a Catholic church that afternoon, although upon learning that Trinity Church was so close to Madam Lennon’s home, and that catholic priests were forbidden from even entering the city, he supposed he could feign Anglicanism for a little while. 

Although, truly, if the young man was ever willing to admit it, he would rather have found himself lying on his bed inside of the widow’s home, his eyes glassy as his mind filled with nothing.

He was in no state to pay a visit to a church, despite his father claiming otherwise. 

His brains pounded in his skull, a beat so fierce and painful he could hear it in his ears, and his shoulders hurt something awful, as though they had been crushed with boulders for the past couple of hours.

In summary—his head hurt, his shoulders hurt, his heart hurt, and his mind was empty.

Yet there Dhani was, standing by his lonesome in a church built for a denomination he did not belong to (although, in all honesty, there was no denomination to which he belonged) surrounded by blank slates of walls and the overwhelming numbness that plagued him, and the reverend was nowhere to be found.

He sighed.

He could view the pastor’s absence in one of two ways. Either it was another karmic misfortune bound to have reached him, a sort of “of course today” attitude, or it was a massive relief, allowing the young man some time to simply sit and let his mind wander, free from the pressure placed upon him by his father, from the critical eye of Madam Lennon, from the unfamiliar hesitance of her daughter.

For the first time in much too long, he felt as though he was truly alone with his thoughts.

Or the lack thereof.

King James’s  _ Daemonologie  _ was in his coat pocket; he had made a point to bring it with him everywhere he went, should he ever need immediate consultation on supernatural affairs.

And while he  _ could _ read it while waiting for the reverend, Dhani wasn’t sure if he had the energy to do so.

It was tempting to simply sit in silent contemplation of an existential void, but in the back of his mind, he could already hear his mother.

“ _ ¡Oh, señor mío Dios! _ ” she would cry. “Do you not know that sloth is a sin? Sit and pray, should you not wish to read. It matters not to me  _ what you do _ , but you had better do  _ something _ !”

And then, after a brief pause, she would continue, “It will be good for you, dear. It will be good for you…”

Her memory faded then.

Dhani let out a sigh.

_ ...And this is likewise very possible to Satan to do, he having such affinity with the air as being a sprite, and having such power of the forming and moving thereof, as ye have heard me already declare: For in the scripture, that style of  _ the prince of the air  _ is given to him. They can make folks become frantic or maniac, which likewise is very possible to their master to do, since they are but natural sicknesses: and so he may lay on these kinds, as well as any others. They can make sprites either to follow and trouble these persons, or haunt certain houses, and oftentimes the inhabitants: as hath been known to be done by our witches at this time. And likewise they can make some to be possessed with sprites, & so to become very demonic: and this last sort is very possible likewise to the devil their master to do, since he may easily send his own angels to trouble in what form he pleases, any whom God will permit him so to use. _

It was rather difficult for Dhani to concentrate on the words in front of him in his post-manic state. He skimmed through the passage with lazy eyes and an empty mind, catching only certain words, the rest being barely registered before immediately being deposited to his short-term memory.

_ Satan _ , he read.

_ The prince of the air _ .

His mind strolled along a path leading to nowhere, a road neither weathered nor well-kept, a long and winding sort of thing built of glass with no surroundings and no destination.

_ They can make folks become frantic or maniac. _

But upon one particular line, it screeched to a halt, immersing itself in the scene around it, taking in with rejuvenated eyes the prismatic light of the stained-glass windows, the crisp white walls, and, most importantly, the faded words of the old book.

Dhani read it again.

_ They can make folks become frantic or maniac. _

His eyes widened, taking in for the very first time that afternoon the full meaning of the text.

Eager, he read on, his breathing hastening as the king revealed to him the information he had waited so long to see.

The stars had aligned, the planets falling into perfect orbital synchronization around him.

Here was his sign, his vocation, his revelation.

The Stuart King’s ascension to the throne was said to be mandated by God Himself, a claim heavily disputed in contemporary society. And whether or not it was true, Dhani could be sure of one thing:

The God above him, whoever that may have been, had mandated  the king’s book to find its way into the young man’s hands.

For what purpose, it was unclear.

But it was without a doubt true that he was meant to find it.

He read on, relief rushing through his soul like a cyclone.

He felt the hand of God guiding his eyes, unable to keep himself away from the words on the page.

In such a place he learned of possession of all kinds, of people and places, the sprites that did so, having been instructed by their master, that is, the devil in an absolute sense, and more commonly, a witch or warlock in a partial sense. And as he blinked, reaching the end of Philomathes’s rant and the beginning of Epistemon’s next question, he realized exactly four truths pertaining particularly to the events that had lately befallen him.

The first: the son of the  _ Sgt. Pepper’s  _ captain and quartermaster, Sean Ono Lennon, was beyond any speculation, a warlock. It was a title he earned within the first second of his life on Earth, a title handed to him by his forefathers, one cursed eternally on him, having been doomed by rite of his very birth.

The second: while Dhani was thousands of miles away in Madras, nearly a year before his arrival in New York, he had unknowingly been cursed by the warlock mentioned above, who had fated him in the name of the devil to bouts of insanity. More specifically, Sean had asked his master to possess the young man, leading to his seemingly spontaneous visions and debilitating maniac outbursts.

The third: the bird spotted by the company on the morning of Sunday, the twenty-seventh November, which had since drawn divisions between, created tension and resentment among, and nearly killed those in the company, was an avatar of the devil, used in accordance with his policy of appearing to his subjects in the form of a small animal.

And the fourth: Sean was controlling said bird, using it at his discretion, likely with intent to execute some sort of master plan against said company. This, of course, also extends to why he had invited them all to assemble in his town, and why he had personally written such invitations himself.

Dhani turned his eyes to heaven, thanking God for His message, and swearing to fulfill whatever duty He had organized for him.

It was here he heard the door open, a stream of sunlight cascading through the entrance.

“Reverend Thomas,” he called, standing upright.

The reverend met his eyes, his fat chin lowering as he nodded. 

“Good morning,” he said.

Dhani approached him quickly, preparing his slow, disoriented voice and tucking the book into his pocket. “It is the afternoon, reverend.”

“Is it?” Thomas asked, a confused yet jovial gleam in his eyes. “Ah, I’m afraid I’ve lost track of the time.”

“No need to apologize, sir. I myself have, as well. Now, forgive me for my brashness, but I require your counsel as immediately as possible.”

The holy man nodded a second time, and with a broad stroke of his arm, gestured to one of the pews.

“Of course, my son,” he said. “Please— take a seat.”

Dhani had to slide to make room for the man, although when he did at last sit down, as the young man was busy preparing his first question, the reverend began, “Lord, in thine infinite wisdom, I humbly beseech thee that thou mayest bestow in me the ability to counsel this young man in whatever trouble he currently doth face.”

Dhani blinked, confused for a moment.

“Amen,” the pastor concluded.

“Amen,” the young man mumbled.

“Now,” Thomas continued, his cheeks rosy from the cold. “What is it that is troubling you so?”

Dhani chuckled half-heartedly, a forced sort of sound, as his strength had not yet been fully regained. “Many things, reverend. I’m afraid I know not where to begin.”

“Ah, it’s a woman then, is it?”

“Nay!” The young man flushed. “Not at all!”

“Oh, do not underestimate yourself, my son,” Thomas said with a laugh. “You are perfectly handsome, plenty so to attract a lady’s hand.” 

“That is awfully kind of you, reverend, but I assure you my troubles do not concern any young maiden’s hand. It is the furthest thing from my mind, indeed.”

The pastor slapped Dhani’s knee good-naturedly, causing him to flinch, the pain in his head and neck swelling. 

“I am only joking, my son.” he beamed.

“Naturally…”

Recognizing the young man’s concerned demeanor then, Thomas cleared his throat, allowing a necessary pause from the flow of conversation before continuing in a more serious tone, “If you are unsure where to start, then start with what you find troubling you the most.”

Dhani blinked.

Such a thing was, paradoxically, both the simplest and hardest thing for him to discern. 

Simple, it was, in the sense that he was most deeply troubled by his visions and madness. He could say this unto the pastor, that he was possessed, although it could bring some rather uncouth consequences.

For example, the reverend could ask him what he had done to allow the devil into his soul, whether or not he had engaged in any kind of pagan or otherwise anti-Anglican rituals.

His father was uncompromisingly devoted to the pantheon of Indian deities (albeit with a few select favorites), and his mother was a Spanish Catholic.

So to such a question, he would have no pleasing answer.

Now, to avoid this sort of drama, as well as the long series of explanations clarifying his personal beliefs and practices, Dhani opted to simply ignore the issue of his madness altogether.

He would instead focus on its root cause.

“How long have you lived in this city, pastor?”

Thomas tilted his head back, his arms crossed comfortably above his navel.

“All my life,” he answered. “And I’ll be sixty years old this coming March.”

“So then… you’ve surely heard of the witches Lennon, haven’t you?”

The old man smiled sheepishly. “The witches Lennon…” he uttered. “Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in ages.”

“What can you tell me of them?” Dhani asked.

Thomas turned to meet his eye, a smile still plastered on his face. 

“You are not from around here,” he noted. “Are you?”

“Nay, sir. I am from Madras.”

“Ah, Madras!” the pastor shook his hand in the air. “Well, that’s awfully far, isn’t it?”

“It is, indeed, sir.”

Thomas laughed. “I don’t imagine you’ve ever seen a winter quite like this, then.”

“No, sir,” Dhani sighed. “I have not. But could you please tell me about the witches?”

“Oh, yes, of course…” the old man turned to his shoes, ever bashful. “The witches Lennon…”

He sighed. 

“Well, it was a winter just like this—what was it… thirty years ago?” He nodded to himself, confirming his own assertion.

“Yes,” he said. “That’s right. It was in the middle of the night that winter- or, no!” he shook his head. “Oh, I’m dreadfully sorry, it was autumn! It was autumn when they arrived.”

He waited for a response from Dhani, and not receiving one, continued, “Either way, it was in the middle of the night when they arrived. They brought with them a ship of English origin, a very large sort of thing, the sort of ship you would expect a whole crew of men to maintain.

“But they had only themselves. There were three of them, you know… an Englishman—he was called John, I believe—and his wife and daughter. No one knew their names but him; they were of a very peculiar race, Indians, if I am not mistaken.”

He paused.

“For that matter, no one knew from where their ship had come, either. It very clearly belonged to the crown, although it bore only the three of them.

“Them, of course, and their treasure. Heavens, they brought with them so much gold… and again, no one knew where it had come from. It was the strangest thing.”

Dhani swallowed.

Piracy. 

It had come from piracy, of course, as had his father’s—and thus his own—fortune.

“All of it was strange, in fact,” the reverend observed. “In the course of one night they appeared, and by the morning they had bought themselves a nice house down by the edge of the woods.”

He frowned. “It didn’t take long for us all to become suspicious of them. The mother and daughter… they used to speak in tongues to each other. That is, if they spoke at all. It was quite a rare sight in those times… but that said, I  _ have  _ heard some accounts of it happening.

“And that John fellow… he used to be found by the riverbank, strumming a cittern for the sirens that reside in it. He was able to speak to them, you know. Perhaps he was one of them… And he was known to wander into the woods on occasion, singing tunes to an audience consisting solely of the devil.

“It took only a fortnight for a formal accusation of witchcraft to be brought against them. And by that point they were infamous.

“See, as soon as they arrived, their neighbor, Mister Gideon Chandler, fell terribly ill. He laid in agony those fourteen days, unable to move, with a dreadful fever and an even worse rash. By his final days, in fact, he simply laid as though he were already dead. 

“Heavens,” he muttered. “I still remember his widow’s screams as he was declared dead…”

Respectfully, he drew his middle three fingers to his forehead, dragging them down to his breast before swaying them from left to right. 

The sign of the cross. 

Dhani did the same.

“May the Lord have mercy on his soul.” the reverend whispered.

“Indeed…”

After a seemingly customary pause, the sole purpose of which was to honor the aforementioned dead, Thomas went on in a low voice, “They—that is, the witches—had behexed an innocent, god-fearing man. And it was at this point that the townspeople, myself included, realized that something had to be done.”

“So what did you do?” Dhani asked eagerly.

Thomas nodded. “The next day the magistrate was brought to interrogate them. From his testimony in their trial, the details of which do not so concern you at this point in time, their house was full of oddities. Statues of deities from an unknown land, a whole closet of swords, journals written in strange foreign scripts, and, perhaps most disturbingly, drawings believed to have been made by the patriarch depicting men in a… shall I say…  _ lustful  _ manner.”

Dhani shook his head. 

“It was immediately recognized that they would need to be questioned in captivity. They would disappear for days, or occasionally weeks at a time… to this day I know not how they were questioned, although, considering their appearance afterwards, it was not in any particularly peaceful manner.”

“They were tortured?” Dhani asked in a whisper.

The pastor chewed on this a bit. 

“I’m not sure about that,” he said. “They cut their hair very short, sure. And they would appear very bruised, beaten even. Put in the pillary... Not the girl, of course. She was simply questioned. But… if you ask me, such injuries were minuscule compared to the damage they surely caused so many innocent men.”

Dhani frowned. “So you think they deserved it?”

“What I think,” the reverend said slowly. “Is that the wicked should not go unpunished.

“Either way,” he continued. “This process went on for quite some time; the interrogation and whatnot. But just as suddenly as they had arrived, within the course of one night, their crimes against heaven increased tenfold.”

“What do you mean?” 

The pastor shut his eyes tight, his voice low and full of scorn as he began, “It was Christmas Eve. One day before the birth of the Lord our God. With the help of two others, a woman whose name is likewise unknown, another Indian, along with another local sodomite, Mister Elton John, they sacrificed their daughter to the devil.”

Dhani’s eyes grew wide.

That was impossible… wasn’t it?

“The way I remember it, her mother had lured her into her bedchamber, and had dressed her in a fine blue dress, matched with a new cap gifted to her for the holiday. Once properly dressed, she laid her on the bed and pinned her arms so that she could not move. And then her father came in.

“He had in his hand an axe, and while chanting in an unknown and unholy tongue to the devil, he hacked it into her flesh.”

He wiped a tear from his eye, pained to have remembered the situation.

“She was cut into two…” he whispered, his voice nearly silent.

A second time, he bowed his head and made the sign of the cross.

Dhani did the same, his cheeks flushed, his hands shaking.

“They spilled her blood for Satan, the beasts,” Thomas spat. “And as the unnamed woman stayed behind to clean the scene of the murder, Mister John—last name, John, that is—he carried the pieces of her corpse to the river, and it’s said that they were fed to the sirens.”

Dhani shook his head, trying his hardest to reconcile with this information, sickening as it was.

It couldn’t be, he thought. Madame Beckett— _ Kyoko  _ was staying with him in her mother’s house. He had seen her every day now for nearly a month, and from what he had seen, she was perfectly well and alive.

A chill ran down his spine.

_ Unless she wasn’t who she claimed to be _ .

“Within one week they were on trial, both for the murder and their witchcraft. It was such a spectacle… testimonies were heard from at least thirty people, countered by defenses from both Lennon and his wife, who, as it became clear, did in fact speak English.

“They argued that they could not be executed, the basis for such a claim being that they were British ambassadors to a small kingdom in the Orient known as Nutopia.”

An art project, Dhani reminded himself. They were ambassadors of an art project. 

“And somehow,” Thomas hissed, his voice raising in both pitch and volume. “The judge ruled them innocent. The devil in his heart, I tell you… A girl, no older than ten, was mercilessly slaughtered and vivisected, her remains fed to the beats of the sea, and ne’er a soul faced worldly punishment for it.”

“What about John?” Dhani asked. “He himself was killed soon after, was he not?”

“Ah,” Thomas sighed. “Well, there’s another story. See, some years later, the Widow Chandler had remarried and become the Madam Braybrook, and in the early months of that year, she was due to give birth. But her daughter was stillborn. 

“Oddly enough, it was around this same time that Madam Lennon found herself with child. The prevailing notion is that the both of them had again behexed Braybrook, this time so that they could take the soul of her child in order to have one of their own.”

Dhani gasped. 

Sean.

“So,” the pastor huffed. “A second trial was held, and a second time, they were found to be innocent. Different judge, although I’m certain that they behexed him as well.”

A beat passed, one horribly long and painstakingly cold.

“She bore a son the very next day.

“After that,” Thomas went on. “They lived in relative obscurity for a number of years. They were despised by everyone, although they never had any other charges pressed upon them.

“And then one night, John was shot by a vigilante by the name of Chapman, although I’m afraid his first name has been lost, at least in my mind.”

He paused, taking a moment to observe the scenery.

“It’s funny, you know. That man—Chapman. He spoke to me the night before. He told me he had been having visions.”

Dhani felt as though the wind had just been knocked out of his lungs. 

“He heard the voice of God, that’s what he said. He was being told to kill the witches, to smite them. And there was something… something he said he had to take. Alas, my mind fails me.

“He was awfully fond of the Book of Revelations, though. I’m certain of that. One verse in particular—he kept shouting it at me. He was mad, you know.

“And what else is strange is that I still remember it. I don’t think I’ll ever forget.”

Again, he paused.

“And I suppose that is because it serves as a reminder of my shortcomings. I wish I was able to convince him to leave their fate to the courts. He didn’t have to go out and kill him himself, you know.... I tried to tell him that. But he didn’t listen.”

He let out a long sigh.

“The Book of Revelations,” he whispered. “Chapter six, verse seventeen: ‘For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?’”

Dhani walked back to Madam Lennon’s in a stupor.

She was a murderer.

Her daughter was a fraud.

And her son was a man born from the behexed soul of a stillborn child.

If it had ever been up for debate, it was perfectly clear now.

Him and his father were not going to make it out of New York alive.

He couldn’t handle the thought, his mind shutting down under its sheer weight.

He felt the cold brush up against him as he walked.

He had to do something.

He had to find a way for him and his father to survive.

Senseless as he may have been, as he approached the witch’s white-walled house, trailing along the edge of the forest, he spotted something round, bright, and golden out of the corner of his eye.

As he bent down to touch it, he heard the bird’s raspy voice call out from behind him.

“Wicked boy,” it croaked.


	38. Ke’irna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which George and Macca discuss their families, death, and the nature of reality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay let’s do a lighting round recap....  
> Iyera- Linda  
> Hei’eisja- Heather  
> Tabanni- James (also Macca’s first name)

In the course of George and Macca’s conversation, two questions in particular arose that both found rather difficult to answer, uncomfortable in the sense that such subjects called to mind quite a bit of pain, a wave of sorrow, even.

Neither man had intended to offset the other with his question, and in fact, were the present circumstances not so complex and nuanced, requiring such a great deal of context and in-depth knowledge about the other’s feelings towards the subject, they would have been perfectly fine; expected, even.

Alas, such is the nature of the human (and siren) species. So multifaceted and complicated are our individual lives that every rule of social etiquette and general politeness carries several very important exceptions.

I digress.

The first of these particularly upsetting questions was directed at George, andd seeing that the questions themselves were standard in nearly every typical conversation, it did not take long for the siren to ask, “How has Dhani been doing? I’ve not seen him all evening.”

Upon hearing such a thing, George hummed, raising his eyebrows high on his forehead, carving deep wrinkles in his skin.

In all honesty, it was not something he could answer himself. 

The young man had come home several hours ago, and although George had made multiple attempts to speak to him, each time Dhani had declined.

He claimed—or rather mumbled—that he had much to think about, so much apparently that any interruption in his internal monologue—for example, taking some time to speak to his father, who had raised him since he was a babe, clothed him, fed him, and put a roof (quite a large one, for that matter!) over his head, would undoubtedly bring about the apocalypse.

After a battle of wit and grit, George had convinced the young man to come and eat supper, a victory he was more than pleased with.

Unfortunately for him, however, Dhani had simply sat at the table, said grace, and eaten a single serving of bread, not a single word leaving his lips until he pardoned himself from the dining room, retreating into his bedchamber, where he still resided. 

So aside from his outburst that morning, George had no idea how Dhani had been doing.

Although, he couldn’t imagine he was well.

“He has felt rather ill today…” the old man answered. “It isn’t anything to worry about, really.”

In the other room, Yoko sighed.

The siren nodded, understanding. “Ah, well I do hope he feels better soon. The last thing we need these days is for him to fall ill.”

“I’ll drink to that,” George laughed.

Macca snickered and pressed his glass to Sir Harrison’s.

Overall, the man’s reaction to such a sensitive question was well-conceived; well-received, as well.

It was simple, clear, and more-or-less accurate, getting George’s point across without forcing Macca to press for details, the latter being courtesy of his swift dismissal.

It was not an open-ended matter, the way he phrased it; there was nothing else to be asked.

Dhani had been feeling ill, hence the siren had not seen him all evening, and he would be feeling better in the morning.

Maybe it was a white lie, but in George’s mind, it was one that benefited everyone.

Having ended the matter with a toast, the favorite British ending of anything, the first question had been resolved. Well resolved, for that matter.

So on the two went, speaking briefly about how Olivia had torn her favorite dress the past spring, and even as summer came around, had not yet found the right shade of string to sew it with.

They both had quite a laugh at the woman’s pickiness, although it was well-understood between them that such a thing was an intrinsic characteristic of hers, and occasionally, even proved to be to her benefit.

After howling with laughter at Macca’s remark that the dress was most likely still torn, George posed his own question to the siren.

It was one he had asked a plethora of times in the nearly four weeks the two had been together, although every time it had been dismissed somehow.

Ringo wouldn’t even tell him—and that’s how he knew something was up.

“So,” he began, his grin slowly fading. “Your wife—Iyera. How is she?”

Macca pursed his lips.

In the past two years, Iyera had become quite a complicated subject.

With the advent of her death, Macca had found himself hitting a wall. The love of his life, the mother of his children, was suddenly gone.

But he was still there, for better or for worse.

And that had led to him face to face with a burning philosophical question, a sort of more real, more pressing version of the age old tree falling in a forest.

If Iyera was dead, and dead she was, did that mean she was now a person or an idea in Macca’s mind?

Although he had made a point of allowing himself and his children unlimited time to think about her and grieve for her, as she would have been very disappointed if he didn’t, Macca still found her death a rather sore subject of conversation, the sort of thing he would only discuss in detail to those very close to him. 

And George… well, make no mistake, he was wonderful. He and Macca had always been on relatively good terms, at least on the ship.

But they weren’t on the ship anymore. In fact, they hadn’t spoken in twenty years. 

Needless to say, they had drifted apart some.

But Macca couldn’t just lie to him.

“I guess I should have seen this coming,” he sighed. “I… don’t know how to tell you this, but…”

George leaned in, concerned.

“Iyera is dead.”

The old man’s face hardened, his cheeks turning to stone, his stubble to moss.

For an uncomfortably long minute he was silent, debating whether or not he should pry for more information.

“It’s been two years, actually,” the siren continued. “It was in the… the spring. That’s right…”

“What took her?” George whispered.

Macca chuckled insincerely. “You will have to forgive me, for I do not know its English counterpart, but it was a kind of illness. One of the breasts.”

“I see.”

The sound of Kyoko laughing in the other room interrupted their silence.

It was a bit of a disturbing thing, really, how light-hearted the banter of the parlor was compared to that of the dining room.

George sighed. “She lived quite a long life, at least.”

Macca felt a pang of disgust flourish in his torso. “Sirens live much longer than humans,” he deadpanned. “So in context…”

“Oh, heavens,” George flushed. “My apologies. I was not aware…”

“It’s perfectly alright,” the siren nodded. “I couldn’t have expected you to know.”

“Right… Right…” the old man put his hand to his chin. “In that case, then, I’m sorry she had to leave you so soon.”

Macca sighed. “I know.”

“But… she’s in a better place now, you know?”

The siren shrugged. “You can tell me that once you’ve seen it.”

“Oh, come on, Macca,” George frowned. “You've got to have a little faith.”

“I’ll have faith when I see her for myself. Now, in the meantime, you’ll just have to fill in for me.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You know what I mean,” the siren hissed. 

George was not amused by his friend’s antics.

“You mean because I am going to die soon?” he asked.

Macca flushed. “Well— no! Don’t say that!”

“Why shouldn’t I?” He raised an eyebrow, egging the siren on. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

With this Macca found himself at a loss. He didn’t want to say it was true, because if he did, he would be admitting that George would not be on the Earth much longer.

But in the same respect, he could not deny it—that would just be untruthful. 

“Precisely,” the old man sighed. “Now, what I mean is this: I am not afraid to die. All of you are afraid of me dying. But the wonderful thing about it is that it isn’t all that sudden. Not in the same way that John’s death was, anyway. You’ve got quite some time to prepare.”

“You cannot  _ prepare _ for death,” Macca argued. 

“But you can accept that it’s going to happen.” George coughed into his handkerchief. “See, there are two ways, I think, that you can look at death. As an end, or as a beginning. I can either lament the end of my life on Earth, or I can look forward to the beginning of my life with God. And given the choice between the material world and the divine, I cannot, in good conscience, tie myself to the illusion that is the world.”

Macca leaned back in his chair. “Is reality just an illusion, though?”

“In my opinion, yes. Everything we own, everything we see and experience, it’s real, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter. Not when compared to the eternal bliss that awaits us in death.”

The siren hummed. “That’s an interesting way to look at it…”

“And  _ that’s  _ a very polite way of saying you disagree,” George laughed.

“No, no!” Macca swatted at him playfully. “I really think it is! It’s just…”

“Here we go.”

“It’s so different from what people in Na’atsji think.”

“How so?” 

“Well, essentially, there are five—or six, maybe seven, depending on who’s counting—separate worlds. The seas of reality. The one we live in is the Sea of Time, controlled by the Walrus Semolin. It’s the lowest of all of them, at the same level as the Sea of Science. That one is really...well, it’s more of a theoretical thing, no one actually lives there.”

“So what is it for?”

“Well, it contains a special sort of essence, magic, basically. And since it’s at the same level as the Sea of Time, we can tap into that magic with a great deal of training.”

“As Ethelein did?” 

“Yes, exactly! And some can even visit it themselves, should their spells be strong enough. Or at least, that’s the theory… it hasn’t actually been proven yet.”

George leaned back in his chair, his hand to his chin in what Macca knew to be puzzled intrigue.

Stifling a laugh, he continued, “After that, on the second level—the Sea of Holes. This is where we go when we die. Essentially, it’s a deconstruction of the Sea of Time… the real version of our world. Nothing is there but slivers of our memory, captured in, well, holes.”

The old man snickered. “I wouldn’t have thought otherwise.”

“Oh, it’s better in Naiadic…” Macca sighed. “But I digress. Inside of the holes are scenes played back from your life—not from your point of view, of course. They are supposed to represent the eyes of the stars, who watch all unblinkingly.”

“The only unbiased judges,” George noted.

“See!” the siren beamed. “It isn’t that complicated! Oh, if only Julian could be more like you…”

“He doesn’t understand?” 

“No, he doesn’t… ah, but I suppose I cannot blame him.”

A beat passed.

“Anyway, you have to travel through the Sea of Holes until eventually, after you’ve seen everything the stars want you to, you will find one of three things—a green hole, a red hole, or a white hole.

“As soon as you see it, it’ll grow up around you, surrounding you until you reach one of three destinations.”

“Here we go,” George jeered. “Give me the first.”

“The first,” Macca responded, his chin lifted high in the air as if he were a stubborn expert of the afterworld, “is the Sea of Time, the inevitable outcome of seeing a white hole. There you will go if…”

He suddenly trailed off, his eyes glazing over.

Turning to the old man, he asked, “I haven’t told you about the Grand Voyage, have I?”

George cocked an eyebrow sarcastically. 

“Then let us pause for a moment so that I may explain it,” the siren sighed. “Brace yourself…”

“I’m all braced.” 

“Essentially,” Macca began. “We all are on a Grand Voyage to our final destination— the Sea of Stars. But it would take much longer than one lifetime to complete it, and so it is broken down into separate stages. The first, creatively named the first voyage—”

George smiled devilishly.

“—comprises of our birth, death, and ascension to the Sea of Green.”

“Which one is that?”

“Oh, we’re not even close to there yet,” the siren cackled. “Just allow me to continue. I’ll get there eventually.”

The old man raised his eyebrows. “I’m beginning to feel like Julian…” he murmured. 

Macca slapped him on the back playfully, accidentally sending his friend into a coughing fit.

“Oh dear…” the siren said, his eyes spinning around the room as if he was searching for help. “Are- are you okay?”

Doubled over in his handkerchief, George wheezed, “Just go on!”

Macca was taken back a bit by the demand, largely because of his friend’s stern tone. That, of course, and the fact that he truly did not seem well.

But the old Sir Harrison did not appreciate his silence, and so, even as his condition worsened, he sputtered, “Do continue, please!”

“Erm—right,” Macca blinked. “W-where was I?”

“The— _ God _ —the first  _ voyage _ !”

“Yes, yes! Of course! Um, the Walrus Semolin was ordained the captain of this voyage, again comprising of our first life and death on Earth, and thus he is also the lord of time. 

“So when one enters the Sea of Holes, they will find one of three things at the end—a white hole indicates the person is unworthy of ascending to the second voyage, beginning in the Sea of Green, while a green hole says otherwise. 

“So if they are unworthy, they will be sent back to the Sea of Time to live a new life, hopefully in such a way that they might be considered worthy at the time of their second death. Now, should one be worthy of entrance into the second voyage, be that on their first, second, or hundredth death, they will then begin a new life, in a new form, in the Sea of Green. It’s been said to be strikingly similar to our own world, and at the same time so different it is unrecognizable.

“At the end of this life, they will stand on trial by the Lord Mayor of the Sea of Green, Yomin Branghaff. Should he rule them worthy, they’ll then board an arc to the sun, where they’ll become a star, burning out only at the end of time.”

His breath returned to him, George asked, “And what of the third fate?”

“Hm?” The siren blinked. “Oh! Of course! It is also possible to see a red hole, although this is only reserved for those so unworthy of the second voyage that they must embark on a completely separate one in the Sea of Monsters.”

“Which is…?”

Macca scoffed. “It’s a lightless chasm ruled by the patroness of death! The name says it all…”

“But are there truly monsters?” George asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“ _ Are there truly— _ ” Macca smacked the poor old man. “Of course there are! The whole point is that the longer you’re in there, the longer you search for an escape, the more monstrous you become. You just lose more and more of yourself until your sentience is completely gone. The game is rigged so that you can never win.”

He paused then, his brow furrowed and his eyes concerned as he continued, “Of course… the wicked aren’t the only people that end up there.”

“Then who else does?”

Macca sighed. “ _ Sje’inn’a’e _ . They don’t belong to any world, and so, with nowhere else to accommodate their souls…”

“What about the other sea?” George suggested. “You said there was another one, didn’t you? Depending on who you asked?”

The siren laughed. “Well… yes. But so little is known about it that it doesn’t really matter.”

“Tell me anyway,” the old man sighed. “This chair’s quite comfortable.”

Macca begged to differ, but continued nonetheless, saying, “The sixth one is the Sea of Nothing. You can see why it’s so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.”

“There’s just… nothing there?”

“There’s the  _ Yaer Imi _ ,” the siren sighed. “Do you remember him?”

George laughed. “Nay, I’m afraid my memory fails me these days.”

“Naturally… well, he’s the real nowhere man. The one John wrote about, you know. He’s sort of just… there. Just watching from the void. And no one really knows what he does, although some speculate he’s only there to make sure the Grand Voyage goes as planned.”

The old man nodded slowly, settled down so nicely in the chair that he could not bring himself to do much else.

“You sure are an expert on all of this,” he observed. “Aren’t you?”

Macca flushed, laughing bashfully as he admitted, “I had forgotten quite a bit of that, really… But I’ve been reading, you know, studying. I was given a book on  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ some time ago, so... I’ve just been going off of that.”

“Ah, I see...” George sighed. “Now— how did we get from Dhani and Iyera to here?”

The siren smiled. “I have not the slightest idea.” 

Macca awoke that night to the sound of singing.

He was in a white room, wearing a thick white veil and facing a pearly white wall.

“ _ Semolin Apischal! _ ” A voice cried.

Startling the siren, the mournful tones of familiar voices called out for mercy all around him, wailing with one unified voice, “ _ Ke’irna!  _ Have mercy!”

He swallowed, his face flushing as he realized where he was. 

Sitting there, dressed in bone-white garments and facing the wall, Macca had dreamed himself into a funeral wake.

But whose was it?

“ _ Heip Moi Chi _ !”

_ “Ke’irna _ !” __

See, Na’atsji funerals were a very structured affair, steeped in tradition and rich in symbolism.

Guests dressed all in white would enter the burial chamber from the back, ordered in a line by how close they were to the deceased.

“ _ Yomin Branghaff _ !” 

“ _ Ke’irna _ !”

Upon entrance into the room, all participants would kneel facing the front wall, their backs turned to the altar.

Only at that point would the magician enter with the corpse, draped in a long white cloth, carried limp in their arms.

“ _ Ansara Macida’e! _ ”

“ _ Ke’irna _ !”

They would place the body on the altar then, securing it in place with three more cuts of white cloth, one at the breast, one at the waist, and one at the base of the tail.

Afterwards, the disciples’ litany would be sung, and the participants would ask each of those venerated souls to bestow their mercy on the deceased.

“ _ Vorneigha Loret _ !”

“ _ Ke’irna _ !”

This, of course, was what our protagonist found himself surrounded by. 

In a moment, he realized, the litany would end, and he would at last be able to turn around, to find out who it was he was supposed to be mourning.

The thought sent shivers down his spine.

“ _ Hagcyar Bmatye! _ ”

“ _ Ke’irna _ !”

He was fully aware he was dreaming, which immediately led him to the conclusion that the room he was in, as well as those around him, and even the songs they sang, were all constructs of Ethelein’s magic.

That is to say: Macca was very much conscious of the fact that his dream was one brought on by the  _ sje’inn’a’e _ .

“ _ Uyil Taxacaze _ !”

“ _ Ke’irna _ !”

So it was a memory of someone’s funeral. That certainly narrowed things down a bit.

He thought back to the funerals he had attended in Na’atsji.

His mother’s.

His father’s.

His grandfather’s.

His neighbor, Lieini’s.

And, most recently, Iyera’s.

“ _ Öni tagitta e’bina’e, _ ” the voice announced. “All disciples of the sea,”

“ _ Ke’irna _ !”

Macca cursed himself.

He was running out of time.

“Through the intercession of the most revered Saruyo Urumay,”

“ _ Ke’irna _ !”

The hour was upon him now.

He braced himself.

“And let this lost soul before me find her place on your voyage.”

Macca felt sick.

He already knew who he would see sprawled out on that altar.

In one last absolutely haunting cry, the magician and all the guests wailed, “ _ Ke’irna _ !

“Now turn,” the magician directed. “and face your dead.”

In a mess of white cloth, all participants turned in a single motion, moving as though they all shared a body.

And before he saw his mate’s lifeless body, he caught sight of the guests’ faces.

Hei’eisja, her cheeks stained with tears.

Ringo, his profile unblinking.

As all eyes turned to the altar, Macca received the only confirmation he needed.

For as Tabanni turned to face her, he grabbed hold of his father’s hand.

Macca sighed at his touch, and at last, cast his gaze upwards.

Iyera’s face was serene, even in death. 

Her hair had been washed and perfumed, filling the room with a sickly sweet aroma.

Her eyes were closed in what Macca noted was a very peaceful sort of way, as if she were only sleeping.

He almost wanted to believe it. 

But no matter how hard he tried to convince himself otherwise, he was the only person sleeping. Iyera was just plain gone.

Stones settling in his throat and stomach, he trailed her body, his eyes moving slowly down her neck and towards her chest.

But as they reached her breast, he caught sight of something unusual. 

Her hands were resting in the center of her chest, palms turned inwards, facing her heart.

And, most strangely, in contrast to the blinding white room, held in them was a bunch of long black feathers, arranged as though they were a bouquet of flowers.

Poor Macca. 

By the time the matchmaker realized his mistake, it was too late.

Our hero, so knowledgeable in matters of the magical world, as proclaimed the evening before by the old Sir Harrison, had encountered, for the first of many times, his ultimate weakness, his vulnerability—Iyera.

Those in the room froze, as if their bodies were made of stone.

Macca cried out to stop it, but in the  _ sje’inn’a’e’ _ s world, he was powerless.

One by one, their bodies melted into oblivion, vanishing into space as the room grew darker.

His veil fell away, scorching on the ground before it disappeared.

As he protested to no avail, the cloth his mate’s body had been wrapped in began to drip with blood, until, in the blink of an eye, it had changed color from a pearly white to a deep, menacing crimson.

And as droplets of the ichor touched the floor, so too did the floor change, the gnarly red consuming the walls and ceiling in a single instant.

Macca opened his mouth to scream, to cry,  _ anything _ .

But nothing came out.

His voice was gone.

So too were the geometric proportions of the room, leaving him, the altar, and Iyera, floating through an infinite red space.

Still holding the feathers, she opened her eyes and sat up, the cloth falling to expose a single one of her breasts.

Her irises marching through a whole spectrum of colors, in hues of jade, rubies, sapphires, amethysts, and ambers, she spoke only one sentence.

“After all this time,” she mused, her voice jarringly deep and cadenced, hauntingly familiar, and yet unknowable. “Look who it is…”


	39. A Noteworthy Observation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Julian, Sean, and everyone’s favorite bird set out for the harbor.

_ THE SENSES AND SPEECH OF A SJE’INN’A’E _

_ As for the senses possessed by the sje’inn’a’e, these too vary greatly in their nature, the deciding factor of their senses’ strengths being, of course, the rate of deterioration experienced by their soul in the Sea of Monsters. _

_ Make no mistake, however, the familiar chosen by the magician at the time of their ordination has an equally large impact on their experience as a sje’inn’a’e, much more than it would have in their life. _

_ As written by the disciple Ansara Macida’e in her personal journal, “After swallowing the liquid, I took the form of a serpent, and my eyes were like those of a serpent. I saw from them the warmth of every creature around me, radiating from their bodies like the very light of the sun.” _

_ Such is the principle of sje’inn’a’e—they shall experience the world more or less as their familiar would, bearing in mind, of course, that over time they will lose their sentience, and become unable to make sense of what they see, at least in any meaningful capacity. _

_ This applies to all of the main senses, as well as the abilities of the creature. _

_ In the course of my research, I have heard and reviewed numerous tales of sje’inn’a’e hauntings, ranging from personal observation to ancient written records dating back to the days of Naiadica, as I explained in the preface. _

_ However, one of the more varied details of such encounters is the simple question—was the beast able to speak? _

_ Indeed, it seems that in certain contexts, the answer to this question is a resolute affirmation, although speech is limited, in most cases, by the mind. _

_ For example, the spirit of Miahuasti Tannaradh e’Soltiea, a tier-two magician who had, at the time of the record’s writing in the early absence of the sun, occurring in the Soltieat year 13 Xonih, been dead for one revolution, was observed to have spoken complete sentences in a somewhat distorted voice, able to discern exactly who he was, but unable to express what his mission was, despite knowing it very well. _

_In the center left of this spectrum, then, of sje’inn’a’e speech ability, would be the ancient case of Tzjabba Zofi, the magician extraordinaire to the Horma warlord Ighre. Her spirit was described to, “Occasionally spew forth ideas largely understandable to the council, the likes of which almost always served as an easily decipherable coded message unto said council.”_ _In this case, Zofi had been dead for ten to sixteen revolutions._

_ Moving further along, we reach the recent story of Audya Til e’Wagosch, a local magician who, by the beginning of her haunting, had been dead for twenty-four revolutions. Til was noted to have only spoken the names of individuals they sought, oftentimes with a childish slur, an inability to properly pronounce their words, which were often reduced to simple syllables. _

_ And at the furthest extreme, I place the tale of the Hasjanili Queen Kosjambeu the Second, deceased for thirty-one revolutions exactly at the time of her haunting. Her Rightful Highness was noted to have made multiple attempts to communicate with Her son, the then-exiled Prince Ouligan, although he was unable to understand any of what she said. _

_ Multiple scholars of this age, including the notable Edia’a Maa of the Great Northern Hal, and renowned mathematician Dredzf Urhafva, have thus placed the negative age at which a sje’inn’a’e loses all hope to meaningful communication at 30 revolutions, apart from some notable exceptions. _

Macca sighed. 

He had spent nearly all day reading the chaplain’s book, searching for anything that would help him to decipher his dream—or anything, for that matter.

And it wasn’t as if he had found nothing. He had quickly been able to rule the black feathers Iyera had been holding as a sign of Ethelein’s physical form, that is, a blackbird.

But as the siren had discovered, there was no logical reason he should have dreamed of her funeral. 

While it  _ had _ been recorded that funeral dreams were very common in hauntings, it seemed that only the magician’s funeral could be dreamed of.

Then again, Macca had begun to notice a pattern in the book. He would read a section, gaining some useful information from it, but Ethelein’s spirit could never be neatly placed within the various constraints it offered.

Take, for example, the above passage on  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ speech. 

Ethelein’s spirit—the bird, as it was colloquially known, had been observed to speak in every mode.

It resembled Zofi’s case in its sporadic crying of “Dead Girl” earlier that month (although Macca would argue that there was nothing about such a message that was “easily decipherable”) Til’s in its wondrous shrieking of “ _ Ingho _ ”, and Kosjambeu’s in its unintelligible everyday banter.

And, as the siren was about to learn, the bird’s abilities mirrored Tannaradh’s case as well.

It all began at dusk that evening, when the sun reluctantly gave way to its younger brother, casting its light in a single, fiery sheet across the land, coloring the harbor a proper rose-gold.

Beautiful as the sunset was, however, Julian could not allow himself to be distracted from the task at hand.

He would not be deterred by the sky, nor by the snow, nor by the pigeon’s happy cooing, accompanied by Sean’s aggravating whispered nothings as he stroked the bird’s neck.

Squinting in the fading light, the older man searched for a figure in the murky water, any figure at all.

Every so often he would catch a glimpse of something bright, shining, fluorescent. It was tempting to simply shout at the water, howling about the pier like a madman cursing the heavens. But what Julian has learned after so many years as a longshoreman was that one must be patient with mermen, and in particular, sirens. 

The consequences of ignoring the latter were, needless to say, dire and very often rather gruesome.

Still, Sean, with infinitely less experience in the marine world, found his brother’s practices strange, impractical even.

It was with this in mind that he placed his hand squarely atop the dove’s head, stagnant-petting it to its immense disappointment, and turning to his brother, asked, “What are you doing?”

The older man held out his lantern. “I’m searching for someone.”

“In  _ that  _ manner?” Sean shifted his weight. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, although—”

“Not Ringo and Macca,” Julian interrupted.

“I beg your pardon?” 

The longshoreman sighed. “I’m not searching for Ringo and Macca, I’m searching for a local.”

Sean flinched as the bird craned its neck in the direction of his right hand, a desperate plea for him to continue petting it.

He stared into its eyes, a troubled emptiness reflected in his own, and ignored the creature, asking, “What good will that do?”

“Good question,” Julian mused. “Here’s the answer—it’s much easier to ask a local if they’ve seen a funny-lookin’ siren around here than it is to specifically search for said siren. Not to mention, in the former, one may also reap the benefit of asking said local to send for said siren. That way I’ve no need to swim in the frozen harbor…twice.”

“Don’t you make light of that,” Sean urged. “You scared me halfway to the grave!”

“And that bird in your hand froze me halfway to the grave. Your point?”

The young man gasped, saying nothing, but was then interrupted by the dove, who had fluttered up off of his hand and near to his neck.

Squawking unintelligibly as it moved, it then proceeded to kick its talons at his exposed flesh, scratching him haphazardly in the blood-red light of the evening.

He yelped, swatting sternly at it with his hand.

Julian, in the meantime, had finally found a pair of dark eyes staring back at him just above the sea level, their pupils reflecting the light of the lantern in his hand.

“As’tasje _! _ ” he waved, stepping ever-so-slightly towards the young woman. “Greetings!” 

Her eyes grew wide. After a moment of deliberation, she swam closer to the longshoreman, whispering, “ _ As’tasje _ …”

Julian smiled warmly.

“Are you a magician?” she finally asked, her voice meek and full of awe.

“ _ Nana _ ,” the man sighed. “I am but a man. Still—might I ask something of you?”

The woman did not answer.

“I am looking for some friends of mine... an ocean siren of Na’atsji and a cecaelia by the name of Ringo. Have you seen them?”

“Of Na’atsji?” she asked.

“ _ Vena _ ,” Julian grinned. “That’s right. Have you seen him at all as of late?”

The woman, now close enough for the longshoreman to see that she was an eel, peered down into the opaque body of water beneath her. 

“Yes,” she answered. “I have.”

“Would it be too much to ask you to send for him, then? He should be with the cecaelia, although it is alright if he is not…”

The woman nodded. “Certainly. Who should I tell him requests his presence?”

“Julian and Sean Lennon, please.”

Sean was too busy with the dove to correct his brother.

His hand chased after it, much to the creature’s amusement, although the effort was truly futile.

“You stop that!” The baker hissed, beginning to feel the sting of the bird’s scratches.

The dove simply cackled, swooping around the young man’s hand until, at last, its feathers brushed up against his flesh.

The sensation mellowed the little thing’s soul, causing it to coo pleasantly in response. 

“This isn’t a game!” Sean scolded, allowing the creature to once again perch upon his fingers. “Now what on Earth was that for?”

Although it appeared to act disheartened by the man’s tone, the bird had to admit that it took immense pleasure in his disappointment.

It had captured his attention, after all, and in its twisted little mind, any attention was good attention.

As Sean continued to berate the dove, it stared deep into his eyes, relishing in the shrill pitch that so showed itself when the man was angry.

It was a frightening thing—one the creature had only seen so many times before—but in the same right, it was exhilarating for the bird to hear such harsh words spoken about itself.

For under the critical sound of Sean’s disapproving tone, something the dove had never thought before popped into its mind.

If it could so aggravate its company, it realized, it could use them to achieve its one goal.

In other words, it could make them des—

The bird’s mind turned swiftly to jade, its eyes growing wide at the sight of Sean’s injuries.

With a concerned cry, it rushed to his shoulder, craning its neck so that it might reach his.

The young man’s face fell.

“Oh,” he sighed. “You’re sorry now, aren’t you?”

The dove cooed softly in response, burying its face in Sean’s cloak.

“I’ll take that as a confirmation.” he murmured.

Then, realizing that the young mermaid was nowhere to be found, he turned to Julian.

“What happened?” he asked, stepping forward.

“She went off to find them,” Julian said. “Did you not hear?”

“Nay, I did not.”

The older man hummed, one of his simple, cast-it-aside hums, signifying neither surprise nor a lack thereof, and turned to face his brother.

“I suppose sh—”

He paused.

“You’re bleeding.”

Sean pressed his fingertips to the scratch. “Am I?”

“Aye, some.”

The young man peeled away his hand to study it. And sure enough, the pads of his middle and index fingers were both smeared in the sticky red liquid.

He glared at the bird.

“Wait,” Julian said abruptly, extending his handkerchief to his brother. “Did that thing—”

“Aye,” Sean sighed, passing the cloth to his dominant hand. “I’m not sure  _ why _ , but… it did scratch me.”

“You truly ought be more careful, you know.”

“Here it comes…”

“I know I say it all the time,”

“But you truly cannot be so trusting,” Sean completed, deepening his voice for what was, in all honesty, an offensively horrendous impression of the longshoreman.

“My apologies,” Julian mumbled.

“Oh, you’re perfectly well,” the young man sighed. “Now, have you got the looking glass?”

Julian drew the mirror from out of his pocket. 

“In all its terror and glory,” he answered.

“May I see it?”

The longshoreman nodded, passing the sea glass along.

Sean stared into it, noting its lime-green hue, and frowning at the young boy that faced him back.

He couldn’t have been older than seven. 

He was of a simpler time, free from undue duties and the strife that he would soon find trailed his existence like a duckling to its mother.

Seeing him made Sean feel sick. 

He decided the boy was best kept in his pocket.

“Julian!” Macca interrupted with a grin. “Sean! What are you doing here?”

The former smiled. “Oh, we thought you might like to see something.”

“Hello,” Ringo bumbled.

“Good evening!” Julian greeted. “And nice tentacles.”

The octopus-man turned to face said tentacles, the likes of which illuminated the water a dim blue. “Thank you.”

The others continued their banter in the backdrop, exchanging various questions and answers around the lantern-light.

Sean, meanwhile, passed the looking glass to his other hand, so that he might draw it into his pocket. But as he pressed his fingertips up against the surface, something very strange happened.

He watched as the green hue lightened, growing brighter and brighter until it shone white like ivory.

As for the image inside, the young boy seemed to grow, his hair alternating between growing and shrinking, his clothes changing, his face becoming marked with various poxes and pimples, his features growing more defined as he occupied more and more space in the mirror.

Until finally, the boy became a man.

And that man was Sean, exactly as he was in that present moment, with his cloak and hat and cut… everything.

Everything but the bird on his shoulder, that is.

“Something is wrong,” he warned.

The other three turned to him, confused.

“Something is very wrong!” 

“What?” Julian asked. “What is it?”

Macca gasped. “He’s got the bird on his shoulder!”

The longshoreman held out his hand to the siren, his eyes locked onto his brother. “We know that,” he said. “Now what’s wrong?”

Sean didn’t dare peel his eyes from the sea glass. 

“It’s the mirror,” he breathed. “I-I’m not sure what I did, but…”

Julian furrowed his brow. “It’s white…”

“White?” the siren asked.

Ringo hushed him. “What do you see inside?”

“It’s just the same as any other mirror,” Sean swallowed. “I see myself just the same… same cloak and cut and everything. But the bird doesn’t appear.”

His brother came up then from behind him, trying his best to inspect the mirror.

Sean was certainly right in describing it, he thought. It was white as milk… he was inside…

“Macca,” the longshoreman suddenly said. “What do you know of this?” 

The siren drew his head back, confused. “I beg your pardon?” 

“Well— do you have any explanation for this?”

Macca laughed. “I’m afraid I cannot have an explanation for everything, my dear.”

Julian sighed. “Do you at least have any idea what the mirror is for?”

“Oh, he has many,” Ringo answered. “You should hear him speak of all of them.”

“It isn’t that many…” the siren said, flushing. “And besides, I didn’t come up with them, I just gathered them from the book.”

“What book?” Sean asked.

Truth be told, he was not aware the siren could even read. 

Macca held his hands up above the water, revealing a large book, its cover dripping with saltwater.

“This one,” he said. “It was given to me by a local sea witch. It’s all about  _ sje’inn’a’e _ .”

“But it is quite long,” Ringo explained.

The siren nodded. “That it is. The author is quite fond of saying things in the longest form possible.”

“That’s—” Julian grinned. “That’s wonderful! So- what have you gathered from it, then? Anything?”

Macca opened his mouth to speak.

And then, of course, the bird spoke for him, its mind built in sapphire. 

In such a form, it could only express ideas is one way: 

“ _ Ingho _ !” it cried, darting towards the cecaelia. “ _ Ingho _ !”

Ringo flinched in all the chaos, causing the bird to, instead of landing on his shoulder, dive face-first in the water.

Sean gasped. 

But oddly enough, as the dove surfaced in the harbor, regaining its balance by using its feet to swim, it did not appear distressed at all.

As a matter of fact, it seemed quite content.

The feeling of floating on the waves was comforting to the little creature; it brought back old memories. 

So instead of screaming or wailing, as nearly everyone expected it to, it simply chirped, “ _ Ingho _ !” and continued on its way to the octopus-man.

“It can swim now?” Julian asked, bewildered. 

Ringo lifted his arms up, trying to figure out where exactly the seagull had gone. “I suppose so…”

“The mirror’s blue now,” Sean noted, stepping closer towards the shore. “If that helps any.”

“Is there anything inside?” Macca asked.

The young man shrugged. “Nothing but a whole lot of nothing.”

“ _ Ingho _ !”

“So I suppose when it’s red, it can speak, and when it’s blue… it can swim.”

The siren did a double take. “Speak?” he asked. “Since when can it speak?”

Julian stared at the ground, blowing air onto his fingertips to keep them from freezing. 

“Oh, yes…” he nodded. “Ah, Sean claims that it spoke to him the other day. That’s the whole reason we came here.”

“It did!” the baker cried. 

Macca’s eyes bulged. “What did it say?” 

“Erm… it said it was a woman. And that it had been to New York twice before—for my father’s funeral.”

He paused.

“I asked it who it was; it said it was unsure. But it had known my father… just not very well.”

The siren’s eyes were wide open, his brows knit together like some sort of horrible patchwork quilt.

“It said all of that?” he asked, incredulous.

“Aye,” Sean sighed. “And even more! Although I don’t recall the rest to be of any true importance…”

He stared down at the looking glass in his hand. 

“You know, it’s funny. I was just telling Julian, it is as if the bird has split personalities.”

“Yes,” Macca said, his voice hollow. “It does seem like that, doesn’t it?”

“Sure does,” Julian sighed. “Although whether it really spoke… or if Sean’s just lost his mind…”

“The former!” Sean cried. “I swear on my life!”

“My apologies…” the longshoreman muttered.

The young man nodded, forgiving him.

“A woman…” Macca whispered.

Ringo frowned. “It couldn’t be.”

“But are you sure?” Sean asked. “I mean, I’ve no doubt that it would lie to me, but… I do know what I heard.”

“Well—” Macca shook his head. “No, that wouldn’t make sense. I’m sorry, Sean, but Ringo’s right. It simply couldn’t be.”

He sighed.

“We never knew any female sea witches.”

“But that woman,” the baker protested. “You surely must have known her! Please, she gave me so much information, can’t you please just try and see if you remember her?”

Julian set the lantern on the ground and crossed his arms.

“Very well then,” he said. “Who all were the women at the funeral?”

“Iyera,” Macca began. “And Yoko, of course… May.”

Ringo pursed his lips. “Was Cynthia there?”

“No,” Julian answered. “She wasn’t able to go. Nor was Kyoko…”

“Naturally,” the siren nodded. “So then, I suppose that just leaves the three of them.”

“Who is May?” Sean asked.

“She was one of the women on the ship,” Ringo explained.

Julian sighed. “She was also Father’s mistress for a short while.”

“Oh,” The young man tilted his head back. “Madam Pang?”

The longshoreman nodded, relieved he would not have to be the one to explain his father’s affair to Sean. 

“Aye, that’s her.”

“So… did she know Father very well? Or just slightly?”

Julian raised his eyebrows. “Sean— she was his mistress. I would imagine she knew him quite well.”

“But are you certain?”

“Positive. I met her once, you know. And she did seem to know him.”

The young man nodded. “Well, then, I suppose it’s not her. But it couldn’t be my mother, either.”

Ringo stared at the seagull cuddled up next to him. You could say it was to distract him from what he knew was coming.

“So that would just leave Iyera,” Macca noted.

There it was.

Sean leaned in to Julian. 

“Who is she?” he asked.

“His dead wife,” the older man deadpanned. 

“But that couldn’t be right!” the siren continued, now growing visibly concerned. “She was never a sea witch!”

“Well,” Sean sighed. “That’s who the bird said it remembered being. Now, was she ever here before the funeral?”

Macca felt his organs fill with acid. 

“Yes…” he answered. “she came to see you after you were born. We both did.”

“Truly?” Sean asked, a bit flattered by the notion.

“Truly.” 

A brief silence arose between the two of them.

Macca used the time to process what he had just heard, although, really,  _ process  _ was not the right word. It was more so that he was trying to deny it. 

There was no logical way Iyera could become a  _ sje’inn’a’e _ . She was an illustrator, not a magician. 

But in some horrible twist of fate, it  _ did  _ make sense. 

Hypothetically, if she was a  _ sje’inn’a’e _ , then she would most certainly be able to speak, having only been dead for two revolutions.

The thought terrified him.

As such, he denied it, putting up the farce that it was impossible, simply beyond reason, and thus, it should not be thought about.

Of course, the issue with such an idea was plain and simple, and Macca knew it perfectly well.

If the impossible is never thought of, never questioned, never considered, solely on the grounds that it is impossible—then it can never hope to be understood. 

Sean, on the other hand, used the silence to stare at the stars, watching as his breath puffed like smoke in the crisp winter air.

Ringo watched the bird run its neck against his waist.

Julian tried to think of something to say.

And the bird simply stated, “It’s quite cold today.”

Macca and Ringo both flinched, the latter clutching onto the former’s arm in surprise.

It met their eyes, turning itself all about in the water to take in its surroundings.

“Oh,” it said. “Hello, Macca. And Ringo… Sean, and… ah, Julian, is it?” 

Julian, his eyes wide, blinked.

“Are you Julian Lennon?” The bird asked.

“Um—” He finally regained his composure. “Yes, I am.”

The pigeon laughed. “Oh, yes, that’s what I thought. Now, what are you doing here? I understand Sean and the rest, but...New York is awfully far for you, isn’t it?”

“I am—” The longshoreman leaned into his brother. “My  _ God _ , you were telling the truth—I am here visiting my friends and family.”

Macca drew nearer towards the bird. 

“Have you always been able to speak?” he asked, hunching his back to meet the creature’s eyes. 

The bird thought about this for a short while. “Yes,” it answered. “I see no reason why I wouldn’t be.”

“This whole time?” Ringo asked, still holding onto his friend. 

“Well… I suppose so, yes. Although… what do you mean ‘this whole time?’”

“Since you came on the ship a fortnight ago,” Sean said, the now bright-red mirror held loosely in his hand. 

The bird drew its head back and fluttered atop Macca’s head. 

“A fortnight?” it asked. “Oh, my dear, I think you’re mistaken…”

“Well—” The young man flushed. “Perhaps it’s been a bit longer, but… you know what I mean!”

The dove chuckled, a low, bird-like sound, and began to thread Macca’s hair through its beak, pulling it delicately through its mouth as through it were trying to straighten it.

“You’re quite funny, Sean. I hope you know that.”

“I wasn’t joking!” he cried. 

“Easy,” Ringo urged, the peacekeeper that he was. “Easy…”

“More importantly, Mister and/or Madam Bird,” the siren began, his eyes cast upwards at the moon. “What are you doing on my head?”

A second time, the bird laughed. “It’s your hair, dear. It’s all tossed about. You would think by this point you would know how to part it properly… but I don’t mind fixing it for you. Not unless you do.”

Macca froze. For an uncomfortably long minute, he said nothing, until at last he uttered, “I don’t mind at all.”

“Very well then,” the blackbird said, continuing to play with the siren’s hair. 

Sean, after a good long while, was finally able to put the looking glass in his pocket. 

He did so with a sigh, asking the bird, “Have you remembered who you are yet? We were just talking about it.”

The dove lifted its head to see him, a strand of oak-brown hair falling out of its beak as it met his gaze. 

“Were you?” it asked coyly, as though flattered to know its...lack of a name was a source of discussion amongst the men. 

“Aye, madam, we were. But you did not answer my first question.”

The creature flew over to the shore, preening itself dry in front of Sean’s boots as it asked, “Which was…”

“Have you remembered who you are?” Julian filled in, his raised brows carving deep wrinkles into the flesh of his forehead. 

“I’m afraid not,” the pigeon sighed. 

“What  _ do _ you remember, then?” Macca asked with a tilt of his head.

The bird turned to him. “You,” it answered bluntly. “I remember you and Ringo. I remember your faces… The Captain and The Quartermaster, Julian, Sean, to an extent… plenty of people. It’s the strangest thing, really. I remember people, although… I’m not sure. You all seem so different. I don’t know why, but you do.”

Macca swallowed.

“Is it different in a good way?” the blackbird continued. “I can’t really tell. Sean and Julian, you both seem so much older… but that’s to be expected, I suppose.” It laughed to itself. “What really fascinates me, more than anything else, I’d say, is you, Macca. Something is different about you, but I’m not sure what it is.” It stepped towards the siren. “Whatever it is, I’m glad to see you’re doing well. And that your hair is finally parted correctly. But that’s more so due to  _ me _ .”

Turning back to Sean, it concluded, “Does that answer your question?”

“It does,” He nodded. “Now may I ask you something else?”

“Certainly!” 

“We believe we may have figured out who you are, based on the description you gave to me the other day.”

The bird’s eyes lit up like a candle in a deserted church. 

“You have?” It asked, a rush of adrenaline coursing through its veins.

“Aye, we have. Now, do you think it’s possible that you may b—”

“ _ Sean _ ,” Macca interrupted, his voice stern and rough, and angrier than the young man had ever heard it.

He turned to the siren.

“This isn’t a good idea.”

“Why not?”

Macca flushed. “You know very well who that is.”

“You do?” the dove asked, jumping up in front of the baker.

He stared at it.

“No,” he said firmly. “I do not. That is why I’m asking it.”

“Her!” the bird corrected.

“Sean, listen to me. That’s Ethelein. There’s no way it’s  _ her _ .”

“So she just told me all of that, then?”

“ _ Sean _ .”

Julian winced, caught in the crossfire. It made his head hurt, his organs turn to mush. He watched the two go back and forth with great anxiety; he was standing around waiting for something horrible to happen. 

“ _ Macca _ , there’s no other way to—”

“Easy now!” Ringo interjected, inserting himself between the two men. “We’re civilized men, here, bear in mind.” 

“I know that,” Sean hissed. “Now, what I’m trying to say is—”

The bird interrupted him, diving towards the peacekeeper as it so often did with its infamous crying. 

“ _ Ingho! _ ” it cried, the bloody beast. It made Sean want to toss the dove from the highest branch of a seventy-foot tree with its wings tied. “ _ Ingho! Ingho! _ ”

“I’m right here,” the cecaelia assured, tilting his head as the bird rubbed itself against his gills. “No need to shout…”

Macca took a deep breath in and turned to Sean. 

“It isn’t even worth it anymore,” he sighed. “It’s not going to respond to you like that.”

“ _ Ingho _ !”

“I know,” Sean whispered, pulling the mirror from his pocket to see that it was once again blue. “She only speaks when it’s red.”

“Does she?” Julian asked, slowly regaining his composure.

“Aye, she does.” 

“A noteworthy observation,” Ringo chimed in.

Sean turned to him. “Do you think so?”

He shooed the seagull away from his necklace, which at the moment, it was trying to eat. “Well, it has to mean something.”

“Of course it does,” Macca muttered. 

The other three turned to him.

He met their gaze. “ _ Sje’inn’a’e  _ will give people things to help them in whatever it is they’ve returned to do. It says so in the book.”

The others continued to stare at him. 

“Oh, for the stars— the bird has given us the mirror to help us,” he continued. “So it’s good that you’re noticing patterns. It means we’re one step closer to figuring out what it is that thing wants from us.”

Sean nodded, his eyes betraying contempt.

They were one step closer, he thought, but not to where Macca wanted to be. 

_ PREFACE _

_ A sje’inn’a’e, in its most basic form, is the otherworldly soul of a single dead magician given a body of this world. The conventional explanation, or, really, the only explanation for them being in such a form is simple—they did not complete work needed to be completed, as dictated by the Yaer Imi’s tapestry. As such, they are sent back to our world to do so. _

_ Of course, this presents an issue: they have already completed the First Voyage, and are then returned to it. _

_ Now, you may argue, plenty of people are returned. But therein lies the issue: they are returned in a new form, whereas the sje’inn’a’e is not. _

_ Because the work they have not yet completed was begun in their individual/familiar vessel, it is in this vessel their soul is returned. However, by such a point, their actual body will have been destroyed. So in place of it, that of a monster’s is substituted.  _

_ Interestingly enough, this means that a sje’inn’a’e is not actually a creation of the Sea of Monsters, as is commonly thought, but is rather the child of the Sea of Monsters and the Sea of Science, the latter being accounted for through the magician’s chosen familiar. _

_ I digress. _

_ Much more about these creatures shall be explored within the pages of this book, but before continuing, I must make one thing very clear: _

_ A non-magical family/tribe member or friend cannot under any circumstances haunt a person as a sje’inn’a’e. Any evidence suggesting that such a thing may be happening shall surely have another, more mild explanation. _

Macca stared at the section late into the night, repeating it in his head like a mantra.

_ A non-magical family/tribe member or friend cannot under any circumstances haunt a person as a sje’inn’a’e. Any evidence suggesting that such a thing may be happening shall surely have another, more mild explanation. _

It did, he thought.

It had to.


	40. We, the Scum of the Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dhani is affronted by not one, but two suspicious persons.

_...For we daily fight against the Devil in a hundred other ways: And therefore as a valiant captain, affrays no more being at the combat, nor stays from his purpose for the rummishing shot of a cannon, nor the small clack of a pistolet: suppose he be not certain what may light upon him; Even so ought we boldly to go forward in fighting against the Devil without any greater terror, for these his rarest weapons, nor for the ordinary whereof we have daily the proof._

Dhani stole a glance away from the book, his neck unmoving as his eyes trailed across the parlor, ultimately landing at the desk in the corner.

There Kyoko sat with her cap facing him, her body hunched over a piece of parchment as she wrote.

The young man found it rather surprising that she knew such a thing, although he supposed nothing about the woman was truly typical, from the hairs on her hair to the shoes on her feet.

They were a costume, after all. Her whole sense of self was a charade.

He eyed the woman with an air of suspicion, taking great care not to attract her attention.

If she saw him, he thought, then she may begin to believe he was onto her secret.

Needless to say, that was the last thing he needed.

He turned his head, staring at his book without really reading anything, and wondered exactly who the woman behind him was.

He couldn’t imagine the Lennons had hired someone to pretend to be the dead girl; her appearance was too much unlike any persons in the area.

So that would logically lead to the conclusion that she was not anyone at all—she was instead a creation of Hell, a demon in the guise of a quiet young woman who spent her days lazily in the parlor, reading and embroidering and playing whist.

But what exactly was the witches’ purpose for her? Why did she have to be brought to Earth for the company’s grand assembly?

Dhani shuddered. 

There was something much larger going on than he had previously thought.

Sean, of course, was the mastermind behind it all. He had to be, considering the invitation to the cursed city had been signed in his name.

That, the young man thought, and the bird.

It had followed him home from the church the evening before—hell, it had spoken to him! 

It had called him wicked, stared at him, and after that, had simply flown away.

He swallowed, catching another glance at Madam Beckett.

Sean was onto him. 

He would never say so aloud, but he was.

And by any reasonable measure, he was not happy about it.

Dhani wasn’t sure what the warlock would do to try and keep him silent, but he was sure of one thing: he had to have a plan.

He had to figure out some way to keep him, his father, and the mermen safe. And perhaps Julian, as well, although Dhani was not very sure where his loyalties laid.

An interesting route to take would be to try and convince the longshoreman to align himself with the opposition, but ultimately, the risks outweighed the benefits. Or at the very least, Dhani would have to wait to do such a thing.

See, it was far too dangerous, at least at the present hour, to simply approach Julian and ask him to truce. If the young Sir Harrison misjudged his intentions, and with them his loyalties, in any way, then his plan would immediately be exposed unto the warlock, and all hope of survival would be lost like a drop of rain in the sea.

Not to mention, the longshoreman seemed decently devoted to his younger half-brother. Whether this was out of sheer ignorance or genuine malice, Dhani wasn’t sure.

Then again, it didn’t really matter. To truce with Julian was to lay one’s naked body in front of a tiger and expect not to be eaten. 

In other words, it wasn’t a path worth exploring.

Now, what had to be explored, if not very reluctantly, was the idea of Dhani expressing his concerns to his father.

He sighed.

His father was a sensible enough man, he thought, wrought with an appropriate balance of rationality and religious fervor, even in his failing health.

But this was a trap. For his father had made it abundantly clear, on an uncountable number of occasions, that while he _did_ believe in demons with his whole heart and soul, he was of the opinion that tales witches and warlocks were greatly exaggerated, often for the benefit of their accuser.

And Madam Lennon was, to some extent, anyway, a friend of his. She had been for quite some time now, and his father would not be one to quickly believe in her evil.

Dhani had to concede one thing—his father could never be swayed by his ideas. He was as a mountain, unmoved by the wind that blows around it, no matter how ferocious it may be.

The young man was desperate to save him from his naïveté, to help him open his eyes and truly take a look at the world around him.

But it would never happen.

How on Earth was that fair, Dhani wondered, that even when his life was on the line, the old man wouldn’t believe his own son? 

He probably thought he was mad; Dhani wouldn’t be surprised if he did, considering his visions and outbursts.

But there was the problem, the young man thought. His father was under the assumption that, if he just set his mind to it, he could stop whatever it was that was affecting him.

Well, Dhani had tried that. He had been prayed for, scolded, held, coddled, given herbs and medicines, and left to sort things out on his own, and _nothing_ had worked.

This was proof to him that it was not an affliction of the body that so bothered him, but instead, an affliction of the soul.

Initially he had taken this to mean he was possessed, but, of course, he now understood he was merely cursed.

His leg bounced up and down. Were he a stronger man, he would march to that warlock’s house and give him a piece of his mind.

But he couldn’t let himself be so unrestrained. His sanity may have been depleting, but his intelligence was still intact.

He couldn’t let that slip away; it was his brains, after all, that would ultimately save him.

The clock struck six then, ringing out a measured series of chimes as its pendulum swung unceasingly.

“Heavens,” Kyoko murmured, turning around in her chair to face the clock. “Six already?”

Dhani flinched hearing her voice next to him.

The woman caught onto this, her eyebrows raising as she urged, “Oh, forgive me! It was not my intent to frighten you, I simply had lost track of the time.”

The young Sir Harrison did not respond, and at this Kyoko frowned. 

Alas, it would seem rather uncouth of her to apologize a second time, and so, in place of such self-righteousness, she took a look at the novel in the young man’s hand.

Its cover was black as ink, a dusty sort of thing. The woman was certain she had seen it before; she must have read it as a young girl.

Dhani did not meet her gaze, even as it burned his flesh. He wondered half-heartedly if Kyoko could tell he was not truly reading.

Interrupting his thoughts about Madam Beckett, however, was Madame Beckett, asking in a hushed tone, “What is that?”

The young man blushed, an awful feeling of premonition rising in his throat. 

“I beg your pardon?” he asked, staring at the woman for the first time.

“That book you’ve got there,” she said. “What is it?”

Dhani studied her face. Her eyes were dark, mahogany, almost, or ebony. They betrayed a certain sort of sadness, a kind of longing for another life—put plainly, she seemed rather discontented. 

Still, she smiled at him. It was a courtesy, he supposed, one that could be bent and twisted, like molten iron, to fit whatever it was her needs were. 

In this case, that meant presenting a facade of approachability and faithfulness, made apparent by her kind tilt of the head and the long, modest white cap that held it in place.

He wondered what was beneath it for a second before it occurred to him that he had not answered the woman’s question.

“Oh,” he said aloud, clearing his throat. “It is a work by a French author, I doubt you would know him.”

“Who?” 

“Jean Paul LeFaux,” he lied, pleased with himself for having come up with the name so quickly.

He only hoped the devil did not speak French.

“I see,” Kyoko nodded. “Ah- you will have to forgive me. I thought I had seen it somewhere before.”

“You are forgiven,” the young man uttered.

The clock ticked and tocked in the absence of any real conversation.

“So,” the woman said after a pause. “What is it about? Is it a novel?”

Dhani pursed his lips. He knew not why the lady felt so compelled to interrogate his literary preferences, but he knew he did not like it.

“It speaks of… philosophy.” he answered. “The duality of man, the role of God in the modern era, the nature of faith. Unwomanly things of that sort.”

“Oh,” Kyoko drew back a bit. “I see.”

The young Sir Harrison’s eyes meandered towards the desk, on top of which three sheets of parchment were resting. 

“To whom are you writing?” he asked.

The woman forced a laugh, a melancholy sort of sound that truly resembled more of a sigh.

“To my husband in Philadelphia,” she answered. “It should take a fortnight to reach him, provided I can find a traveler that shall deliver it to him. Although he shall surely appreciate it.” 

“Is that where you are from? Philadelphia?”

Kyoko crossed her legs. “You could say that, I suppose.”

Dhani furrowed his brow.

“I was born on the ship,” she explained, noticing his look of confusion. “And from there we settled down here… myself, my mother, and my stepfather,” She pursed her lips then, her eyes downcast as she continued, “Although I did not stay long.”

The young Sir Harrison swallowed.

He knew that much.

“Well—” he began, “Where did you go from there?”

Kyoko clutched her knees, the muscles in her forearms tightening. 

“There were many places,” she said. “Although after some time I simply ended up in Pennsylvania. There, of course, I met my husband, and soon after, we were wed and had children.”

“But your mother returned to New York?” Dhani asked, skeptically.

The woman sighed, clearly disturbed by the question. “She was… not there.” she sighed. “In Philadelphia, that is. She never was.”

“So where was she?”

“She stayed here.”

“And you left?”

Kyoko flushed scarlet, as though she was offended by the line of questioning.

“It matters not,” she insisted. “I would rather not speak of it.”

Dhani did not respond. He had heard everything he needed to. 

The woman opposite him stared into the abyss that presented itself in the window, and with a sigh, said, “It’s such a shame we’ll not be home for Christmas.”

Dhani felt a twinge of sorrow as he thought of the holiday. His mother would have to spend it all by her lonesome, the servants having all been granted release for the festivities.

It brought him great trouble to picture her sitting alone at the end of her dining table, spread with wine, cheese, bread, and various other dishes, wondering whether or not her husband and son were well.

Unlike Madam Beckett, of course, George and Dhani could not write to their friends and family in Madras. It would simply take too long to arrive.

This spurred a wicked jealousy to form in his mind, a wicked sort of loneliness, a need for comfort and familiarity.

That woman was far too good at manipulating his emotions, he thought.

He swallowed the acid in his throat, pushing it deep down into oblivion, and asked, “At this point, when will we ever return home?”

“Oh,” Kyoko said, shaking her head. “Who knows? I’m not sure we _can_ until this whole thing’s been figured out. But… look on the brighter side of things. We’ll get to spend Christmas all together—just like those days on the ship.”

“Your mother celebrates Christmas?” Dhani asked bluntly.

“Certainly,” the woman assured. “You know, she grew up a Christian.”

“I did not know that…” the man mumbled.

“I know not how she regards the holiday these days,” Kyoko continued in a rather pitiful tone. “But regardless- I do know her to celebrate it.”

Dhani leaned his head back, ready to acknowledge the statement with a simple, “Ah,” or perhaps even an “I see,” but was, much to his dismay, beaten to it by an unusually high-pitched, bird-like voice in the foyer.

“Mother?” Sean called, closing the door behind him.

The young Sir Harrison froze.

It was an offense from all sides.

“She’s gone to fetch applejack,” Kyoko explained, waving her arm to the man in the doorway. “Do you need her for something?” 

Sean stepped into the parlor, a bundle of sticks held in his arms.

Dhani wished he were a piece of fabric lining the sofa seeing his face. He wished he were inanimate, lifeless, unknowable. 

“I only came to deliver kindling,” he said. “Has she truly gone out in this weather? In such darkness?” 

The young Sir Harrison watched intently as the baker brought his firewood near the hearth, bending down and wincing in the presence of its blistering heat before tossing in a couple of sticks.

His father was upstairs, he thought. If anything were to happen—that is to say, if the witches were to do anything to him, he could surely call out for his aid.

Surely.

“Aye,” Kyoko sighed. “I offered to go in her place, but you know how she can be.”

“You got yourself the old ‘I have fought back hoards of sailors and pirates, I can surely brave the cold for a night’?”

The woman laughed. “Exactly!” 

Dhani swallowed, his eyes darting back and forth between the two. 

Sean had certainly caught on to his antics; his bird had even called him wicked. If there was ever a time to intimidate him, to exploit him into silence some way, it was then.

The baker sat in the chair to the right of the sofa, his back slumped and his hand rested absentmindedly beneath his chin.

Dhani had to exert every measure of his strength to keep himself from scrambling in the opposite direction.

“Good evening, Dhani,” Sean greeted with a sudden shake of the head, as if he was just then noticing the man. 

“That would be Sir Harrison to you,” the young man answered.

Sean smiled, his eyelashes batting and a slight laugh escaping his lips. 

Dhani frowned. 

“Oh dear,” The baker suddenly sat up straight. “You’re being serious, aren’t you?”

“Why would I not be?”

This only made Sean’s smile grow larger. “Am I not—by a number of years, in fact—your senior?”

Dhani furrowed his brow. “I suppose so, yes, although by the same token, am I not of a higher social standing?” 

The air in the room stilled.

Kyoko pursed her lips.

And Sean simply sat in his chair, his mouth open nearly as wide as his eyes in a sort of stunned silence.

Until after an eternity, he burst out laughing, doubling himself over, completely unable to contain himself.

“What?” Dhani asked. “What is it? I was not making a joke of any—”

The baker held out a hand, still held up in his laughter, which was by that point even more severe, his face obscured by a mass of thick black hair.

“I—” he wheezed. “Oh, hell!” 

Dhani felt his cheeks flaming. Not only was his title being insulted, it was being mocked by a half-breed warlock! As if he were not the one who should have been mocked!

“The first thing you must realize,” Sean said between sporadic bursts of laughter. “Is that while under this roof, _Most_ _Esteemed Sir Harrison—_ ”

He was literally unable to finish his own sentence, that’s how humorous he believed himself to be.

Dhani crossed his arms.

“While under this roof,” the baker continued. “You must understand that we are _all_ of the lowest class imaginable! We, the scum of the Earth!”

“I beg to differ.”

“Very well then! Just know that in this place, there will be no distinction but age. Not a soul here is concerned with who is a lowly woodsman and who is an heir to the throne!”

For some unspeakable reason, that last bit caused the man to fall even further into his amusement.

“Oh, Lord…” he cried. “Do you forget, my friend—”

“I am not your friend.”

Sean sighed. “Do you _forget,_ boy, that you are the son of a pirate?”

Dhani flushed.

“Yes, a thief of the seas, a plundering scallywag fond of exotic rum and prostitutes!”

“What are you implying about my father?”

The baker closed his eyes. “I am not implying anything,” he said. “I am simply illustrating a point.”

“And what point is that?”

“We are all here for one reason—” He grinned like a wolf, a smug sort of expression.

Dhani wanted to knock out his damn teeth.

“ _We are all the sons of pirates_. None of us can deny this, and hence, none of us are of any higher birth rite. So, at least in my opinion, none of us should be forced to observe any of the others’ titles.”

“You respect my father’s title,” Dhani argued.

“Well, that I do. But I do so only to respect his seniority to myself. It is in the same way you respect my dear sister’s.”

Kyoko raised her eyebrows.

“And I am not implying that you must refer to me as Mister Ono Lennon—”

“I would do no such thing.”

“Precisely,” Sean said, extending a hand. “You are perfectly within your right to do so. But I see no rational way you can argue from such a position while simultaneously insisting I must refer to you as Sir Harrison. It’s simply hypocritical.”

“Calling me a hypocrite is not an argument.”

“Maybe not, although it is quite illustrative of your position’s flaws, Dhani.”

Dhani opened his mouth to speak.

But he had been backed into a corner.

Sean was, in some sense, correct. 

Still, were he not raised in the way he was, he would have knocked the man into 1840, for the baker was absolutely infuriating when he was correct, with his mad smile and his spectacles so low on his nose they were only moments from shattering on the floor.

“That being settled,” Sean said with a well-timed pushing up of his spectacles. “What are you reading?”

Kyoko, hanging out of the kitchen doorway, as she had decided that enough was enough and supper needed to be made, answered for Dhani, saying, “Some sort of French theological commentary.”

The baker’s eyebrows perked up. “You don’t say?” 

“As a matter of fact,” Dhani said, closing the book and straightening his jacket. “I do. I do say.” He paused. “Or, rather, Kyoko says.”

Sean laughed. “Very nice. Now— my brother tells me you are a fan of Sir Isaac Newton?”

The young Sir Harrison blinked, confused for a moment, as he had somewhat forgotten such details of his and Julian’s earlier conversation.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Um… that’s right.”

The baker leaned his head back. “Are you a man of science, then?”

Dhani shrugged. “Science, mathematics, the philosophy of the natural world… I suppose I am a man of many interests.”

“Have you ever read John Locke?”

“Of course,” the young man scoffed. “Who hasn’t?”

“Not enough people, I’ll tell you that!” 

Contradicting every principle Dhani had come to believe in, and washing a sense of dread over him, the young man could not help but laugh at this.

Sean smiled, pleased to see he was breaking his stoic exterior.

But Dhani quickly returned to his senses, straightening his posture as he stifled a laugh and took in a quick breath of air.

He knew what the warlock was trying to do; he was like a siren.

First he lured in his prey with the frustratingly cheery and approachable demeanor he presented, and then, whenever it best served him and his master, he would seize Dhani’s soul, disposing of him like a vulture tossing bones in the sand.

“So,” the young Sir Harrison said dryly. “I take it you find great resonance in his ideas?”

“Oh, certainly! A true visionary, he was. I’ve no doubt about it.”

“Do you go so far as to take stock in his claim that the people of a nation have an innate right to revolt against their rulers?”

Sean hummed something low and sad. “Personally—yes, I do. Although I pose my own question to you: Why waste our time trivializing matters of government when far more interesting is Locke’s theories of the mind?”

A beat passed.

“Have you read his _Essay Concerning Human Understanding_?”

Dhani sighed. “Of course.”

The baker’s eyes lit up. Never before in his life had he been able to talk to someone about such ideas—other than his mother, of course. And very occasionally Julian, although he was more inclined to do his work, live his life, and get on with things. 

Needless to say, the life of the witches’ son was a lonely one. Where he stepped in a crowd, a path cleared. When he spoke, a hush grew over the room.

Some men would see this power as a tool. Whether earned through reverence or fear, respect, or at least, the facade of respect, was an infinitely useful way to get what you wanted.

But to those men uninterested in being a local plague upon the Earth, those who would rather go about their lives in peace, just like everyone else, it was a curse.

And when combined with a relatively submissive personality, such a man would quickly find himself hunched over in the town square, shaking under the painful snap of the fishmonger’s broom upon his back.

“And what did you think?” Sean asked, his eyes wide.

“It was… _interesting_ ,” Dhani conceded. “I think he was onto something there, comparing the mind to a sort of blank slate.”

“Right? And what of the abuse of words?”

“Well…” the young man chuckled. “I didn’t actually find that section all so interesting.”

“Truly? What about—”

“May I finish?” 

Sean drew back. “Oh, yes, certainly.”

Dhani swallowed. “Still, I don’t see why there is any use in condemning the language of others. At the end of the day, people will say whatever they like.”

“But should those who feel compelled to invent new words not be chastised?”

The young Sir Harrison shrugged. “That’s the thing—all words were invented at some point. I mean… if you are going to argue that we should never add any new words to the English tongue, and thus, are arguing against its progression, then you should not be referring to me as ‘you’, but rather, as ‘thou.’”

“See, but that’s a much different issue! ‘You’ was a preexisting word that simply underwent a change in meaning!”

“Which,” Dhani said, raising his voice. “If I am not mistaken, Locke also argued against.”

Sean furrowed his brow, growing very quiet as he explored his thoughts.

Dhani smirked. 

He had backed him into a corner.

Now look who was wrong, he thought.

“He was not advocating for the purity of the tongue,” the young Sir Harrison continued. “He was fighting against its inevitable evolution. Which, by the very nature of inevitability, can not be stopped.”

Sean frowned. “But that does not cancel out the validity of his other ideas!”

“I never said it did,” Dhani said. “You know, you can appreciate someone’s ideas without agreeing with them on every issue.”

He didn’t seem to take the book in his lap into account as he said this.

“But surely there are ideas that automatically ruin a person’s credibility.”

“I’d have to disagree with that.”

“Say—if I claimed we should plant explosives in the Parliament—”

“That isn’t realistic!”

Sean laughed. “Have you forgotten about Guy Fawkes?”

“Guy Fawkes likely still agreed that downing a bottle of vinegar like whiskey was a bad idea.”

“He was a Catholic!” the baker cried.

Dhani’s eyelids fell. “My mother is a Catholic.”

“Oh, God…” Sean flushed, allowing himself to laugh at his own stupidity before continuing, “And to think it was I who said we weren’t to trivialize matters of politics.”

At this the young Sir Harrison caught himself smiling. It wasn’t a smile of contempt, either, or even a smirk.

It was a sincere, honest-to-God smile.

“I would say you were a hypocrite,” Dhani began.

The baker turned to him, his manic grin returned as he said, “But calling me a hypocrite is not an argument.” 

“Precisely,” the young Sir Harrison laughed.

Sean sighed, still smiling as he rested his head against the fabric of the chair. “You’ve got quite a mind in your head, Dhani. Quite a mind indeed.”

“Do you think so?”

“I do,” the baker said seriously. “I mean it. Hell, you might even be a bit smarter than me.”

Dhani scoffed. “I hope so.”

Sean chuckled, his eyes narrowing at the young man as he repeated, “Just a bit.”

The young Sir Harrison laughed.

He wanted to return the compliment, but as he opened his mouth to do so, it hit him.

He was going to compliment the warlock.

He was going to tell him he had a sharp mind, if not a stubborn one.

The black book in his lap taunted him.

Instead, he told Sean nothing.


	41. You Have Thus Found Your Answer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which, at long last, the prophecy is cracked.

For a long while after grace had been said, no one knew what to say. 

It wasn’t that they had nothing to speak of, of course, quite the opposite. 

There was everything to discuss, everything to say, to theorize, to work out. There were talking birds and magic mirrors, dreams and nightmares and visions galore. There was Christmas and New Year’s and the company’s inevitable return to Liverpool, to Madras, Philadelphia, and the depths of the sea.

And most importantly, there was Ethelein’s prophecy. 

That evening marked the third time the company had assembled to analyze it, their conversation having usually devolved into primal screeching over one another, a contest of opinions in which every man believed himself to be the victor.

It also marked four weeks exactly since the bird had first appeared. 

They had been an extremely eventful four weeks for both the company and its individual members, rife with introspection, realization, theorization, drawn conclusions, the lack thereof, jokes relating to Dhani’s unknown bastardry, and conflicts of both the internal and external sort.

But among turkey, potatoes, parsnips, and pumpernickel, silence was a mortal comfort, a crutch of sorts. 

If nobody ever brought up the bird, so the theory states, it would be as if it was nonexistent.

This logic, however, could only work under one condition—everyone was in mutual agreement that the silence would not be broken, with only an exception for light-hearted banter pertaining to the food or weather.

Too bad there was Macca.

“So,” he sighed, picking at his potatoes. “It seems Ringo, Sean, Julian, and I have discovered something unusual about the  _ sje’inn’a’e _ .”

The company all turned to him, and for a moment, it seemed that the whole table sighed, down to the grain of the wood.

Yoko set her wine down. “And what would that be?” 

Julian stared at his plate absentmindedly, not looking forward to his stepmother’s—or, really,  _ anyone’s _ reaction to the news.

The siren took a deep breath in.

“It can, at least in some circumstances… seem to…” he paused. “speak.”

“Is that supposed to be news?” Kyoko laughed, the prongs of her fork stabbed into a parsnip. “It said I was dead!”

“And I wicked!” Dhani added, glancing nervously at Sean as he spoke.

Sean simply figured he did not know where to focus his gaze.

“Yes, of course,” Macca said. “But it wasn’t merely spewing phrases. It was speaking as though it were one of us.”

A hush fell over the room.

And not a second later, in what was becoming the company’s typical fashion, bedlam broke out.

“Well, what on Earth did it say?” Kyoko asked, her hand held to her heart.

Yoko simply shook her head at the revelation. “It could have said so much sooner, then!” she cried, tossing a hand in the air.

Dhani, of course, was skeptical of the claim. And while he did not outright say so, he was beginning to grow concerned that the mermen, too, were under the warlock’s influence.

“It said… lots of things.” Macca mumbled.

Sean sighed. “Including that it was a woman.”

Yoko’s face fell at this, a grim frown forming on her face.

George drew back dramatically, his eyes blinking at the speed of sound as he said, “That- that’s new!”

“Well,” Kyoko began, “Is the spirit female, or is it rather the bird that is?”

Julian sighed. “I didn’t exactly think to check its sex, although I’m sure  _ Sean _ has.”

The baker nearly choked on his turkey.

“Julian!” Yoko chastised.

He apologized only out of habit.

“What on Earth do you mean by that?!” Sean cried.

“Well, I just mean that y—”

“It matters not!” Kyoko interrupted. “Now, did it tell you who it was?”

“Not exactly…” Macca frowned. “It said that it was a woman who had been to New York twice before, and that it had attended John’s funeral.”

“So we ruled that it must be Iyera,” Ringo added.

The siren winced and turned to the octopus-man. “You three ruled that,” he said. “And you even said it yourself—it wouldn’t make any sense.”

“That’s the thing!” Sean cried. “You want things to make sense, but the problem is— _ they don’t _ .”

“They have to!”

The baker fought back the urge to use this as proof of his original statement. 

“Listen,” he huffed. “Just listen to me for one second—none of this has made any sense from the very start.”

“That’s because you’re a human!” Macca urged. “You’re a human, and humans don’t understand magic! So in turn, when it presents itself to you, of course it seems nonsensical!”

“Macca,” Ringo said sternly, placing a hand on the siren’s shoulder. “Don’t fool yourself.”

“What are you s—”

“Macca, even  _ I  _ don’t understand this. And I know you’ll say that’s because I was never taught any magic, and I’ve never studied  _ sje’inn’a’e _ like you have, but for the love of the stars, have a little humility!”

The siren flushed.

Julian had to admit that he had never seen Ringo angry. He was always just the tired, bumbling cecaelia that followed Macca around.

But in his current state, the longshoreman found him to be a quite commanding, even intimidating figure.

He figured it was best to stay far away from him; let Macca take the brunt of his criticism.

And criticized Macca was, as Ringo went on, “You said it yourself! Ethel— hell,  _ whoever the bird is _ , they completely defy whatever is written in your book.”

“Ringo, I—”

The octopus-man sighed, drawing his thumb and index finger to the space between his eyebrows. “Just—you aren’t fooling anyone, you know. The bird doesn’t make sense to any of us. Don’t fool yourself.”

A beat passed.

Onlookers watched in anticipation, and even a bit of terror, if you were Julian.

“You’re right,” Macca finally conceded. “Moons and stars, you’re right…”

“I know,” Ringo answered.

Sean admired his confidence.

“It… it doesn’t make sense, but—it still can’t be Iyera. There’s no way.”

“Well, she told us otherwise,” Sean sighed.

Yoko turned to him faster than a whip-crack. “It told you who it was?”

Her son shrugged. “That’s what we gathered. I mean, the only other women at Father’s funeral were you and Madam Pang, so unless you’ve something to tell us…”

“Nay,” she said. “I’ve nothing.”

“Is it possible the bird could be lying?” Kyoko asked with a tilt of her head. “About being Iyera?”

Julian sighed. “I suppose so, yes, but it certainly didn’t seem that way.” He chewed on a bit of turkey, his fork shaking and pointed towards his stepsister as he went on, “As Sean was saying, it didn’t outright tell us its identity. Matter of fact, I don’t think it knew.”

“It didn’t know who it was?” George asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Nay,” Sean answered. “It asked me if I could help figure it out.” He took a sip of his wine. “We were going to tell it what we thought, but… it had other plans.”

“It flew away?” Yoko asked.

The young man chuckled. “That depends on what you mean, I suppose. If you are implying it flew beyond the horizon, then nay, it did not fly away. But if you are implying it dove for Ringo and started screaming his name—or at least a derivative of such—then yes, it did.”

“Again?” the old woman muttered.

Macca shook his head, deep lines creasing into his forehead. “Aye,” he sighed. “There must be some sort of pattern to it all.”

George swallowed his potatoes, noting that they were a tad too salty before asking, “And what would that be?”

The siren gestured to Sean, who did not pick up on the hint for several uncomfortable seconds.

“Oh, my apologies,” he said, clearing his throat.

The company forgave him with a murmur.

Dhani tilted his head slightly away from the man.

Most of the company, anyway.

“Er- what was the question?” the baker asked, flushing.

“What patterns have you observed with the bird?” Macca repeated.

Sean thought for a moment. With a slight nod, he began, “It can only speak when the looking glass is red. If it is blue, then it just shouts out to Ringo. And when green or violet, it does not seem to speak at all.”

“We were saying earlier,” Julian added. “It’s as if it has split personalities.”

Macca grosser another parsnip onto his plate. “Exactly—its speech patterns don’t line up with what would be expected for a  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ that old.”

Yoko leaned back in her chair. “So what does that mean, exactly?”

“Well, considering the bird can speak like a human, one would think the spirit it possesses has been dead for far shorter than Ethelein.”

Sean raised his eyebrows, his body frozen as goosepimples dotted his flesh.

His logic, he realized, was not merely ivory. It never had been.

It was  _ prismatic _ .

Macca furrowed his brow. “But then it goes and starts yelling for Ringo, which would imply it’s been dead even longer than that… and why the fascination with him?” He reached for his friend. “Not that you aren’t fascinating, Ringo, but—”

The octopus-man nodded. “No, I understand.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” the siren sighed.

Sean suddenly met his eye, his own having grown as wide as sand dollars. 

“It has to be Ethelein,” he began. “because he was the only sea witch, right?”

Macca blinked. “Well—yes… Where are you going with this?”

“Just hear me out a moment,” the young man urged. “It must be Ethelein, but it seems as though it fluctuates in how long it’s been dead?”

The siren smiled, anxious. “That’s right…”

“So then,” Sean concluded, taking time to meet the eyes of everyone at the table. “Perhaps it isn’t  _ just Ethelein _ inside of that bird!”

Julian sighed.

There he went again.

“You’re saying it’s more than one person?” George asked.

“Yes!” Sean laughed, his eyes bulging. “It has to be!”

Macca grew very serious. “Sean, no.”

“By God… all this time I had thought it could be my father, or Iyera, or—”

The siren shook his head. “No, no. No, just—”

He took a deep breath, trying his hardest not to shout at the young man as he said, “Fine. Let us assume, for a moment, that you’re right. The bird is an amalgamation of many different souls, including John’s, Ethelein’s, and Iyera’s. That is completely correct in this scenario.”

“Alright.”

The siren lowered his jaw so that he had to look up at Sean. “How did it happen?”

The baker frowned. “What do you mean?”

“How did Ethelein get ahold of their souls?” 

George shook his head. “Oh, don’t go asking that!”

Macca turned to him. “Why not?”

“Lord!” the old man exclaimed with a cough. “Have I really got to spell it out for you? You don’t need empirical evidence for every claim! Especially one rooted entirely in observation!”

Dhani turned to him faster than a hare runs from a fox. “You actually believe him?!”

George ignored the boy. “You’re not looking for an answer, Macca, you’re asking a trick question! One that you  _ know  _ he can’t answer!” 

“It’s  _ not  _ that!” the siren cried, his cheeks flaming. “It’s just that what he’s claiming is completely absurd, mad,  _ impossible _ , even!”

“Don’t you call him mad!” Yoko scolded.

Kyoko tried, to no avail, to raise her voice in the chaos, to offer a compromise.

But strangely enough, compromise is an incredibly polarizing issue.

“Oh, for the stars…” Macca mumbled, bringing his hands to his temples. “I was only saying that his theory doesn’t make sense! It isn’t him that is mad, it’s his ideas!”

“So are you saying h—”

At last, Kyoko broke through.

“People!” she shouted. “Macca, Mother, Sir Harrison! Please! You aren’t animals!”

Yoko laughed at this, gesturing to Macca as she said, “ _ He _ is!”

“You know what I mean!” her daughter huffed. “Now listen—what if each personality does not, in fact, belong to a separate entity, but is instead a single facet of Ethelein’s?”

With this, the atmosphere seemed to still.

Yoko nodded slowly. “Like pieces of a broken mirror…”

“Precisely!”

“Could it be?” Sean asked, turning to Macca.

The siren furrowed his brow. “Perhaps if his soul has deteriorated enough…” he sighed. “I mean, it  _ has  _ been thirty years.”

“But what of him would each piece represent?” Julian asked. 

Kyoko turned to Macca. She had never known the sea witch well enough to be able to answer such a question.

“Well,” the siren stammered. “I…”

“A part of him seems to like me quite a bit,” Ringo offered.

“True,” Macca sighed. “Although I never got that from him when he was alive. If he liked anyone, in fact…”

He chuckled.

“It was John.”

Sean winced.

He had tried awfully to block such things from his mind, and up until that point, had mostly succeeded in doing so.

“Too bad he’s dead,” the young man sighed.

Yoko frowned. “Sean!” 

He said nothing. 

“Whoever the bird is,” Julian grunted, waving his father’s journal in his hand. “We’ve still got a prophecy to figure out. And by God, we’re going to finish it tonight.”

Macca nodded. “Of course.”

“No one’s going to fight,” the longshoreman continued, making sure he looked at Macca and Sean as he said this. “No one’s going to allow themselves to become harsh or unrestrained… we’re just going to read, try and analyze the text, and move on.”

His eyes moved clockwise around the table.

“Is that clear?”

“Perfectly so,” Yoko said, nodding.

Julian glanced at everyone else, who then bumbled in general agreement.

“Very well,” he sighed, clearing his throat as he opened the journal and asked, “Have we already discussed the section about the doll?”

George frowned, wheezing as he said, “I don’t think we did.”

“Nay,” his son protested. “We did.”

“But did we finish it?” Sean asked.

Ringo shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Right—that was when the bird came in,” Kyoko noted.

Yoko nodded, shutting her eyes.

“Ah!” Julian raised his eyebrows. “It was, wasn’t it? Yes, oh, a clever mind, you’ve got… Anywho!”

Sean snickered, causing his brother to flush as he began, “‘The doll will vanish on an accord not of her own. She will be broken and thrown about, but will someday be mended once she has returned to herself.’”

He paused, tapping his fingers on the table.

“A doll…” 

Kyoko covered her mouth with her hand, a look of great worry plastered on her face.

“Could it be your doll?” Julian asked, meeting her eye. “The one on the mantle?”

She swallowed. “It must be! In some sort of figurative sense, anyway…”

Her stepbrother’s eyes grew wide. “With the vanishing,” he began.

Kyoko cut him off, answering simply with a nod.

This, of course, drew intense scrutiny from the young Sir Harrison. 

He watched intently as a realization seemed to strike the madam of the house, and even more so as Sean stared at his plate, saying and eating nothing.

“Could you repeat that, please?” he asked.

Julian turned to him, his eyes wide.

“Could you please repeat the section?” Dhani repeated.

The longshoreman nodded, apologizing as he began, “‘The doll will vanish on an accord not of her own,’”

The young Sir Harrison cocked an eyebrow, intrigued by how Madam Beckett studied her hands.

“‘She will be broken and thrown about,’”

Dhani drew a deep breath in.

That was certainly one way to describe a dismemberment. A rather poetic description, to compare a martyred young girl to a broken doll.

“‘But will someday be mended once she has returned to herself.’”

He pursed his lips.

If to die was to be broken, then what was it to be mended? 

To be reborn, perhaps?

Reincarnated?

Or, he realized with a start, did it mean she would be raised from the dead, her bones dug up from her watery grave.

“And you believe this _ doll _ to be Madame Beckett?” Dhani asked.

Julian sighed. “That’s the prevailing theory, yes.”

The young man narrowed his eyes. “May I ask why?”

For a suspiciously long while, the family was silent.

And then Kyoko spoke up, her voice patient and understanding as she asked, “Do you remember how I was telling you about leaving for Philadelphia?”

“I do, yes.”

“Well, as a young girl, I used to cherish this doll—Madam Berkeley. She sits atop the mantle.”

“Alright.”

“And… when I left, I had forgotten to bring her with me. So she stayed behind all these years, and it was not until I returned that I saw her again.”

She sighed. 

“So it is for that reason, then, that we believe I—”

“But what of the text?” Dhani cried. “What of her being broken? What of her vanishing against her own accord?”

“Perhaps that isn’t any of your concern,” Sean shrugged.

Julian frowned, suggesting before Dhani got the chance to protest, “How about we move on?”

“But we haven’t analyzed anything!” Macca said.

“I think we all understand the meaning just fine,” the longshoreman countered.

Dhani crossed his arms. “Not I!” 

George leaned into his son, deep wrinkles on his forehead and desolation in his eyes as he muttered, “I’ll explain it to you later.”

The young man leaned back in his chair, growing ever annoyed with the company.

“‘Under the glow of one thousand stars,’” Julian continued. ‘“And the fire of the moon shall the bird tamer cry out to the world of this carnage. But his cry will be pierced by the pits of drowsiness, to which he has succumbed.’”

Macca shook his head.

“It’s Ethelein,” he whispered. “It has to be…”

Sean furrowed his brow. “Because of the bird tamer?”

“It’s a more traditional way to refer to a magician,” the siren explained. “The tamer of their chosen familiar.”

“So it speaks of his death, then?” George asked, drawing his handkerchief to his mouth.

Dhani drew near to the sight like a moth to a flame.

Macca nodded, a deep, intangible sorrow in his eyes as he whispered, “He was trying to warn us.”

“I beg your pardon?” Julian asked.

“When he died,” the siren clarified. “He was on his way to find us. I can only imagine it was to warn us…”

The cold omnipotence of death watched over the room. 

Macca took a deep breath. “Just… continue, please. Read on.”

The longshoreman nodded.

‘“When he returns he will find himself among one thousand flowers, having lost what he had been searching for for so long in the Sea of Monsters.’”

He furrowed his brow. ‘“It is there, but hidden—concealed under layers of black and white. Not once, but twice, though halved, warped and distorted. But two halves, of course, make one whole.’”

He paused.

‘“You have thus found your answer.’”

The only sound to be heard in the room was the heavy-hearted swing of the clock’s pendulum, a grim reminder of the time they all were running out of.

“One thousand flowers,” Yoko repeated.

Julian’s throat grew dry. “Like in my dream…”

The company all turned to him. 

“The night I was tossed in the river,” he raved, his heart beating wildly. “I dreamed I entered a door… and inside of it was a field of marigolds.”

The room seemed to sink into the ground.

“The bird was there…” the longshoreman gasped. “He was  _ there _ !”

Sean felt as though the world was spinning out of control.

He didn’t really listen to what his brother said; nor did he listen to the hushed questions and comments following his story.

No, in Sean’s mind, he saw himself sitting at the kitchen table. He was small—he could hardly see the roses laid out on its surface.

And yet there they were, uprooted from their place in the parlor, their roots cut away so that only their stems and flowers remained.

They were split into two groups—one white, and one black.

One dead. One remaining.

Both disposed of.

He saw the black roses flow along the riverbank, drifting along and disregarding the chunks of ice in their path.

The white ones were thrown into the snow. They were stepped on, crushed under the heel of her boot.

And when at last the time came, once everyone had gathered, he knelt down on top of their dead petals, and extended his hand.

The dove cooed for him.

“Sean?” 

He was a very nice bird.

“Sean?!”

The baker felt someone grab his arm, jolting him, if only slightly, from his trance.

He turned to see Julian, a wild look in his eyes.

“What in God’s name are you doing? You look as though you a—”

“It was the funeral,” Sean deadpanned, his voice much deeper than usual. 

Julian gave him a puzzled look.

So he turned to his mother.

“You cut the roses. You split them into two groups and then threw the black ones into the river, and the white ones into the snow.”

Yoko said nothing.

She just stared.

“They were still there at the funeral,” Sean continued. “I sat on them when the dove appeared. He cooed for me.”

Julian’s eyes grew wide.

“Dear God…”

By the time the prophecy had been read in its entirety and the clock struck midnight, the company had come to each of the following conclusions:

_ The stars shine brightly _

_ Yet can not live forever _

_ They must burn out  _

_ Their light becoming faded _

_ In a brilliant and sudden flash _

_ In the same way shall we fall _

Stars, in the same way as all things, die spontaneously, suddenly, brilliantly. There is no warning, nor any amount of preparation that can ease its pain.

_ The nowhere man is but prey to fools _

_ He will be hunted and rivaled _

_ Though several times he may escape the claws of predators _

_ When the world is consumed in cold  _

_ When the course of life runs smoothly like pearls _

_ He will be caught and laid among strawberries and roses _

The nowhere man, upon further consideration, was John. He was hunted as a witch, tortured, even. And yet he survived. He carried on with his life, and enjoyed it immensely, believing he was free from the hands of his enemies. Until he was killed one winter, and was then laid to rest eternally in Strawberry Fields, surrounded by the white roses he had planted in his parlor.

_ The woman of black, second of her position, will be there _

_ She will be forever stained by that moment,  _

_ Her heart like a lake of glass, _

_ haunted by rye and raven  _

The woman of black was his widow. She was Yoko, who had witnessed his death, and who had been changed beyond any hope of returning to normalcy because of it. That night had haunted her, and would continue to haunt her fragile heart, until the day she met the same fate as her husband.

_ The sunflower shall live on  _

_ bearing one heir with the Lady Madras  _

_ He has fought valiantly for that he believed _

_ Rivaling the unjust and misguided _

_ And then shall disappear in a gray haze _

The sunflower, of course, was George. Following Ethelein’s death, he had moved to Madras, found himself a bride, and had borne a son. Even in the face of his tribulations, he had stood up for himself and his beliefs, in everything from his mutiny aboard the  _ Sgt. Pepper  _ to the accusations of witchcraft that so marred his family name. Still, his time on the Earth was limited. And by December of 1740, it was running out.

_ Tragedy shall fall upon those of blue,  _

_ One left to the pages of history, _

_ The other to the pitfalls of loneliness _

_ Left only with a memory _

_ Etched in silver  _

Those of blue were Ringo, named for his sapphire eyes, and Rette, his species being named for their sapphire claws. The latter had been reduced to dust, his name one of millions dead in the population crisis and subsequent fall of Agratsch, while the former was left by his lonesome, the only piece of his former lover remaining being the silver pendant on his neck.

_ He who is adorned in gold and gems will for a long time sing, _

_ He will bear many _

_ And harbor a great deal more _

_ History shall not forget him _

It was Macca, the siren known locally for the quality of his voice, that was adorned in gold and silver, by way of the jewelry that caressed his person. With his mate Iyera, he had borne four children, and considered Julian and the various other youths that looked to him for advice his children in spirit.

_ His young apprentice _

_ Born to the woman of white, first of her position, will grow _

_ It is then that his eyes will be opened _

_ And he will be consumed in the light of a star near its end _

_ A decision he will forever regret _

His young apprentice was Julian, born to the woman of white, a dairy maid—Cynthia. It was unknown what any of the other lines about him referred to.

_ The doll will vanish on an accord not of her own _

_ She will be broken and thrown about  _

_ But will someday be mended _

_ Once she has returned to herself _

The doll was Kyoko, who had been dragged from her home and had traveled across the colonies, and after twenty-seven years, had gathered the courage to return to her mother, after a long and ongoing process of recovery from her more tumultuous years.

_ Under the glow of one thousand stars and the fire of the moon shall the bird tamer cry out to the world of this carnage  _

_ But his cry will be pierced by the pits of drowsiness, to which he has succumbed  _

_ When he returns he will find himself among one thousand flowers, having lost what he had been searching for for so long in the Sea of Monsters _

_ It is there, but hidden _

_ Concealed under layers of black and white _

_ Not once, but twice _

_ Though halved _

_ Warped and distorted _

_ But two halves, of course, make one whole _

_ You have thus found your answer. _

Ethelein, having died on his way to warn his company, had reappeared in his  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ form at John’s funeral, and had allowed Sean to pet him.

In this beastly form, he was searching for something. More specifically, he sought to finish his illicit soul reading. He sought knowledge and closure of what was to become of the dynamic between himself, John, and Macca.

One of the larger questions remaining then, though there were many, was how he was going to obtain this.

But the bird, of course, had a plan for that. 

And at last, it was beginning.


	42. Women, Warlocks, and Charles II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which George dreams of his eighteenth birthday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that this took longer to put out than usual, but I’ve been awfully busy this week! If it makes you feel any better, than we’re reaching my favorite part of the story, so I should be able to get that out pretty nicely... in the meantime, though, enjoy!

It was a very bittersweet sort of thing for the members of the company to all lay on their beds that night. Sweet in the sense that they would close their eyes knowing that they had finally deciphered Ethelein’s prophecy, but overwhelmingly bitter, like a lime peel, in its connotation. 

It did not seem likely, or for that matter even possible, that the magician’s words would bring them any good fortune, what with its grim descriptions of stained hearts, dying stars, and disappearances among thick gray fog.

So, although for some persons, it was not at all uncommon, none of the company slept very well in those early hours of the day.

No one, that is, except for George.

See, he had accepted his death already; he had done so since the earlier stages of his illness. And this feeling was only exacerbated with the threat to his life that past winter.

He had been certain, that night, as blood trickled out of his mouth, that he was never to see the light of day ever again. He had been fully prepared to pass into whatever may have awaited him beyond the material world; he was ready.

And then the rug was pulled from under his feet.

It would be a fair assessment, then, to say that he now lived in a sort of middle ground, a limbo between life and death, a state in which he was, through the grace of God, still alive, but the dark hand of death lurked around every corner. 

It buzzed through his mind, crawling through floorboards and seeping into his lungs, planting the ever-present wonder if that day would be his last.

If not properly handled, as made starkly obvious by Dhani, then it could lead a man to ruin.

But the thing about death is that it can be tamed, controlled, studied. Like a wild horse, with just the right attitude, it can be conquered.

But people willing to do so are few and far between. They are a field of flowers in the desert, and because of their outlook, can sometimes be seen as cold and uncaring in the face of their demise, as if they are overlooking its significance for themselves and their loved ones.

Interestingly, however, Sir Harrison found himself as one of these people.

Perhaps he had always been one to seem benevolent towards conflict, stony-faced and silent, jaded, even, but that had never been the case.

Still, as his final hour drew nearer, and he increasingly found himself treading through his limbo, he could not help but wonder if he truly was becoming that man.

Nothing made this question of belief and identity more apparent, of course, than Ethelein’s prophecy. For as mentioned before, he felt that, in some way, he would not be affected by it. He would escape whatever fate Ethelein had foreseen for him through death, but at the cost of leaving his son and friends in his place.

In short—he knew not how he was supposed to feel about the prophecy. 

But at the very least, he was able to sleep.

And when he awoke, he found himself sitting at the end of a table, its surface spread with rolls, meats, eggs, fruits, and jams galore, all topped off with tea, cream, and sugar.

His plate was half-eaten, piled high with food, and his tea half-empty.

He looked up.

Across from him sat his father, and directly to his left, his mother.

No one else would be joining them.

It was strange, George thought, to see their faces again. They seemed foreign, an unknowable remnant of a bygone era.

But they were certainly there, just the same as he had known them, down to the wrinkles on their faces.

His father ate without speaking, his knife sawing into his eggs as his wife made quick, lighthearted banter.

“Oh,” she began, her voice much higher than George had remembered. “Won’t that be a day, when you are wed! Say, I have heard from the Countess Ainsbury that her youngest daughter—Elizabeth, that is—has expressed a keen interest in meeting you… The Countess, of course, is very pleased with the thought, and has given permission for you to visit her in her home, should we ever find a date on which you are able to do so.”

George cringed at the thought of Elizabeth Ainsbury. He had met her shortly after his eighteenth birthday, his second attempt at courting. It went... alright. Of course, her mother, the Countess, was a very stuffy and haughty woman, and in the end, she had deemed George too, in her own words, uninteresting for her daughter.

Which was completely fine with the young man. If anything, he thought the same of Lady Elizabeth.

His mother giggled. “Oh, but I shan’t get too far ahead of myself…”

At the end of the table, George’s father set his tea down and cleared his throat, a deep, important sort of sound that resonated through the dining hall—a warning of what was to come.

Lady Harrison quickly settled down, her smile turning to a frown as she drew a deep breath in, her hand gliding ever-so-gently into her husband’s.

George looked to his father, confused by the gesture, and found him, rather strangely, donning a stony expression. His brow was furrowed, his mouth curled into a grimace. With his free hand, he held onto his chin, his fingers spread over his lips in such a way that they were only visible from one corner.

George’s eyes grew wide as the realization hit him like a hammer to the head.

There was a reason, he thought, that the scene in front of him felt so surreal, as though it were a scene from an oil painting. There was a reason his mother had mentioned Lady Ainsbury, why he had recognized it as the calm before the storm. 

It had all happened before.

The tea, the rolls, the meats, the jams… everything down to the placement of the forks on the table was indicative of one moment, branded in George’s mind forever, and cemented in the dream by his father’s stone-cold eyes, which would not, or rather,  _ could not _ meet his own.

It was a moment he had thought about often, doubly so in the past year.

It was the conversation that set the entire course of his life, and it began with his father’s voice saying only one word:

“George.”

The old-young man’s face fell. His lips parted, but found themselves unable to move any further.

There was simply nothing he could say.

“Now that you are of age, your mother and I believe it only to be right and proper that we should endow you with the true knowledge of your family name.”

For an uncomfortably long time, all George heard was the sound of his own breathing.

His mother stared with doe eyes at him, watching as her son, with a newfound ease, mind you, pushed his plate aside and leaned forward, disregarding etiquette as he rested his elbow on the wood, and his chin on his hand.

“Father,” he began.

The old man did not acknowledge him, continuing with a sigh, “Yes, indeed. As a matter of fact, there is quite a lot.”

It was at that moment George realized he wasn’t going to get anywhere with the man.

Swallowing his pride, as though he were an actor reading from a script, he uttered, “Then tell me.”

His father nodded with closed eyes, opening them as he, for the first time that morning, made eye contact with his son.

George felt as though he could see through his skin, his gaze piercing the cavities of his skull and traveling down into his soul.

It was exactly the same as he had felt the last time, although, at the age of fifty-seven, he thought of it slightly differently.

He wondered whether, in that moment, his father could have understood the impact his words would have on his son. Had he expected him to take it as poorly as he did? Did he foresee, somewhere in his heart, that George would ultimately leave the name, the legacy, the very life he spoke of, behind?

Looking back on the man’s gaze with eyes renewed, that is to say, looking back at his father, now with paternal experience of his own, George couldn’t imagine the pressure the man must have been under speaking to him that morning. He had to have known he wouldn’t have taken it well. He had to have known George would have to re-evaluate his entire life, his entire  _ identity _ .

Looking back on it all, the bravery his father had displayed that morning was insurmountable.

A pang of guilt twinged in George’s chest.

He wished he had known that that day.

Maybe then he wouldn’t have acted out as dramatically as he had.

“You surely have heard me speak of my mother,” his father continued. “your grandmother.”

“Of course,” George nodded. 

“And, thus, you’ve heard me speak of her husband, your grandfather, of course—Henry.”

“Naturally.”

The old man drew a deep breath in, his age seeming to increase tenfold as he announced, his voice heavy as lead, “Then let this be the day he dies, figuratively speaking, as he shall be buried only in name, or in title, rather, as, despite previous claims to the contrary, he is not my father, and thus, equally so, is not your grandfather.”

George raised his eyebrows. 

Let this be the day he dies, he thought. That was certainly one way to put it.

His mother’s face grew pale, her eyebrows contorting as she drew her hand to her mouth, unable to face her son in his disbelief.

“Easy,” his father urged. “I shall explain everyth—”

He was cut off, his head drawing back and his pupils growing small.

George had yelled at him, he was sure of it. He had interrupted the man, stunting his patience to demand to know who his real grandfather was.

The old man shut his eyes, “Now, I’ll take none of that, thank you very much! If you feel compelled to act that way, then I shall tell you only that my father is Oliver Cromwell, and then you shall die without ever a shred of truth! Is that what you would?”

George chuckled. 

It was strange for him to see his father angry at him again. There was a striking resemblance in his father’s anger and his, something in the way they used absurdism to make their point. 

Of course, George’s brand of it was often sprinkled with a note of genuine humor, whereas his father’s held weight in its sincerity. Should he have continued to interrupt and disrespect his father, then he was certain the man would have claimed Cromwell as his father, and George would have had to pester one of his siblings for the truth.

Finally, his father’s features softened. Careful not to compromise his position of power, he sighed.

“That’s precisely what I thought,” the old man said, straightening his wig. 

George beamed.

“Now, henceforth, if you should have the right decency not to interrupt me, I would like to continue in my explanation.”

“Certainly,” The ageless man nodded, his hand extending across the table.

The old Earl Harrison sipped his tea for a fleeting moment, disappointed to find it growing cold as he began, “Henry Harrison, great as he may have been, is not, and never has been my father. And for as much as I would like to say that this is because my father died when I was a babe, I regrettably tell you, I cannot.”

The old man leaned in then, attentive towards his son, listening.

George figured he must have asked his father a question, a suspicion that was confirmed when the earl answered, “To put it in the simplest possible terms—he had had an extramarital affair with my mother. He was wed, at the time, to another woman.”

George watched as his mother fiddled nervously with her wedding ring, the metallic band glittering in the light as her husband’s eyes dulled.

He shook his head, chuckling with sincerity before continuing, “So to put it rather bluntly, I am a bastard child.” 

He paused.

“But, of course, that begs the question, in your mind, at least—who is your true grandfather? I place not the blame upon you for wondering such a thing, as it is something I myself have asked many times before. 

“That being said, however, it is a question to which I know the answer. In fact, I would argue, with good reason, that the answer shall be leagues more surprising to you than the knowledge that I was illegitimately conceived.”

At this George laughed aloud. “Well,” he cried, amazed at the ease with which he spoke. “You’ve certainly got that right!”

His father grimaced, inhaling sharply through his nose before murmuring, “My true father is the former King Charles II.”

George could almost hear his younger self drop his fork to the floor.

“Oh yes,” he laughed. “I’m well aware.”

The old man paid him no heed. “Hence why I was given my title,” he went on. “Although I would venture to s—” 

His mother suddenly drew back, one hand pressed to her breast as the other gripped her handkerchief. 

Ah, George thought, of course she had brought it. She had always been a sensitive woman, after all, the kind that would find herself in hysterics if her favorite vase had broken.

“George!” his father suddenly cried, interrupting his train of thought. “Sit down!” 

“I am…” the man said coolly, a puzzled look on his face. “Oh, or, perhaps I should just…”

He stood up, feeling rather foolish as he did so.

He was in one of those magical memory-type dreams Macca had described, of that he was sure. But did he have to re-enact every detail of the morning? 

He wasn’t sure.

The worst part of it all was that he knew what was coming. That is to say, he knew how his parents would soon start to act, because he knew how he had acted upon learning the terrible truth of his family name.

He had run, to put it simply. He had run to his bedchamber, and stayed there all day, until at night, when he had resolved to instead drown his sorrows.

Of course, all hadn’t gone as planned—for in the tavern, he had run into the one man that, at the time, had been the bane of George’s existence.

There they sat, the orphan and the taxman, until early in the morning, drinking ale and talking about life.

A shout cast the man out of his memory.

“George, please!” his mother urged with exasperation in her eyes. “Come and sit down! We can talk about this!”

“I suppose so, yes. Although I’m not sure we ever did...”

His father gave him a stern look, his jaw tight and his brow deeply furrowed as he cried, “Very well then, you may leave! But mark my words, young man, you’ll come back!”

George frowned. He had forever recalled his father mumbling something at him as he left, although in such anger, George did not bother to listen to what he had said.

Standing there at the table again, the man hesitated, unsure of whether to stay or go.

Fortunately enough, however, he never had to make the decision—fate did it for him.

His father turned his head in the direction of the staircase. 

“Go,” he uttered, just as visibly frustrated as George himself had been. “Go and run from it all you want, but don’t you fool yourself into believing you can outrun it.”

George frowned, his features softening as he watched the two console one another.

His father was right, he thought, strolling down the hallway, about running from his ancestry. Back in those days, when he seemed to think that having a ‘Sir’ before his name meant he was untouchable, he had been ashamed of himself. Self-conscious, in a way. 

His thinking was that he could always be better; he wanted to be better than other people.

He was a nobleman, sure, but he could be  _ more _ noble, more well-known. 

The only things that stood in his way, of course, were his Catholicism, his Irish heritage, and most pressingly of all, a certain cittern-strumming longshoreman who was hellbent on ruining his life and reputation.

George sighed, thinking of John.

Just that day, on the morning of his eighteenth birthday, he had barely known the man. But by the end of the night, they were inextricably bound. In other words—it was that day that had sealed their fates, intertwining their stories together for nearly twenty years.

John taught him much about life, certainly much more than any tutor could. 

He taught him patience.

He taught him humility.

He taught him how to let loose.

And now, thirty-nine years later, George was sleeping in his widow’s home.

Life was short, he thought. Too long when a man’s a boy, and yet too short when that boy becomes a man. And that is why he must measure his life, and with it time, in accomplishments, in things that must be done before the clock chimes at midnight.

Marry a woman.

Move away from his parents.

Raise children.

Find God.

A million little things, a million moments and conversations, all separated into ‘before’ and ‘after’.

Before he was married.

After he moved away from his parents.

Before his children were born.

After he found God.

George stopped.

Before he knew of his grandfather.

After he was stabbed.

He was suddenly reminded that the minutes on his clock were counting down, creeping in the seconds no soul ever saw to midnight.

And when the clock chimed, would he have done enough? Would he have done everything he was meant to? Everything he should have?

He turned his eyes to his younger self in the portrait above him, as though he might have had an answer.

All he had, however, was a face. He had two eyes, a nose, two too-thick eyebrows. He had a wig, shoulders, and a coat that draped over them.

In his striking familiarity, however, George noticed one thing wrong.

He wasn’t staring into his own eyes.

He was staring into his son’s.

And then he was staring at nothing. Everything was dark, as though someone had poured ink all over his head; he was trapped in an inkpot.

Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his chest, as though from the inside, his rib had snapped and cut his flesh.

George began to cough unceasingly, until his head felt light and his sides ached. He heard the panicked shuffling of his son towards him, felt his icy hands on his back as his tongue caught a taste of something metallic, as though he had swallowed a penny.

The old man fought back the urge to vomit, gasping and grabbing with all his strength for any breath he could obtain, even as blood trickled down his chin, even as he wondered whether the hands of the clock had aligned, even as Dhani grabbed onto him, begging unintelligible prayers to anyone who could hear him, he fought.

And until the battle had been won, he could have sworn he heard the voice of his father, no longer angry, no longer frustrated, but calm, assertive.

“Run from it all you want,” he said, his voice barely a whisper, and yet all George could hear. “But don’t you fool yourself into believing you can outrun it.”

With stumbling breaths, George swallowed what blood (and vomit) was left in his throat and faced his son.

In him, inversely to the portrait before, he saw himself. 

He saw a scared young man, ashamed of his background, and forever searching for the truth. He had two eyes, a nose, and the same two too-thick eyebrows that George had endured so much ridicule for.

It was frightening how much they looked like each other.

“Father!” Dhani cried, his eyes wide and his voice shaking like a calf’s legs. “Father, are you well?”

“Dhani—”

“Should I fetch you a glass of water?”

“Dhani.”

The young man stopped dead in his tracks.

George cleared his throat before beginning, “Let me tell you a story.”

He hushed Dhani before he ever had time to protest.

“Once long ago, in those days before you or I, before our nobleman ever set sail on the Sgt. Pepper, before he had dueled his captain, before he had even been born, there was his father.

“And before him, his father. His father’s father, unsurprisingly, was a nobleman in his own right, a man of the highest order of the land, born in a palace and attended to by servants and maids. 

“But as he grew older, he noticed an increasing dissatisfaction among the people of the land, one that bubbled and boiled like hot milk in a pot until it burst, and a civil war broke out between the king’s men and the parliamentarians.

“After many years of bloody fighting, the parliamentarians emerged victorious, and in January of that same year, our palace-born nobleman’s father was executed.

“He fled to Holland, fearing for his life, where he stayed for many years, sitting, watching from afar, and waiting for the day he could reclaim his position.

“But his home country had been overtaken by a spiteful old man, one who spent his days eating hardtack for fun and washed it down with hot water.

“And this man had banished our nobleman from the land, ordering that, should ever return, he be killed immediately.

“So all the poor fellow could do was sit and watch and wait.

“Until one day, an opportunity presented itself, cloaked in the black robes of death. 

The old man had suddenly grown very ill, and died soon after, leaving the fate of the land in the hands of anyone willing to weave it.

“And weave it our nobleman did, returning to his homeland and reclaiming his title.

“Back in his homeland at last, he found himself with only one problem remaining—that of his worldliness.

“See, he was fond, to the point of fault, of decadence, a lavish man who spent his money and time on having a good time, be it through food, drink, plays, parties, or, as he was especially fond of, women.

“Yes, that’s right. In spite of his legal commitment to his wife, this man continuously found himself committed to whatever duchess or countess he found to have the most acceptable bosom.

“So, as you can only imagine, our nobleman bore many children with his mistresses, and pitifully, not a single one with his wife.

“Now, given his social status, the existence of his bastard children was well-publicized, to the point of becoming common knowledge.

“And so as an act of apology, I suppose, to his children, he passed on titles to them. They grew to be dukes and countesses and earls, positions which had previously never existed.

“Including Harold Hargreaves Harrison, the first Earl of Liverpool, who married Countess Louise French, and bore four children, Louise, Harold, Peter, and George, the youngest, a taxman who one day, upon learning all of this, began to question the world around him.

“Why was he born into nobility, he wondered, as opposed to others? What had he done to deserve a position? What good did he use it for?

“His questions were answered only once he had stepped foot upon that pirate ship, of which you’ve heard plenty of by now.”

“And that,” George concluded. “Is where our story first began. Mine and yours alike. Consider it a prologue of sorts.”

Dhani’s face was unreadable, his eyes empty and his mouth a vague frown.

“Now, as for my grandfather...” the old man said, drawing in a breath.

“He made your father an earl,” Dhani answered, staring into the darkness. “But that isn’t possible…”

His frown was carved deeper on his face, confusion furrowing his brow as he turned to his father and proclaimed, “Only the king can earl men!” 

George looked back at his son and nodded.

Dhani’s eyes grew wide. “Are you implying that—”

“Charles II,” George sighed. “The merry monarch…”

A beat passed before he continued, “How do you feel about that?”

Dhani laughed maniacally. “How am I supposed to feel?!”

“Any way you wish, I suppose.”

“So it was all a lie, then? Our whole family name is-is riddled with bastardry and immorality?”

George furrowed his brow. “Well, I wouldn’t say that much. It was only your grandfather, after all, that was…”

He paused, his eyes trailing to the floor.

How long, he wondered, would he be able to play his game of charades? How much longer would he be able to hide the truth from Dhani?

It wasn’t right, he finally realized, to lie to him. He was no better than his father, hiding the truth from his son for so many years.

There, in front of George, sat a reflection of himself—a fragile young man craving knowledge. But the key difference between Dhani and that boy eating breakfast was their arge.

George had been celebrating his eighteenth birthday that morning, back when he was a pitiful thing, frivolous and immature, articulating his emotions through a distasteful slam of his door or an unprecedented hour in which he barricaded himself in his bedchamber, allowing no one inside.

But Dhani… he was twenty-two. He was insightful, intellectual, understanding, if given the proper time to introspect. 

George knew that somewhere, deep down inside, the boy he had raised was still alive. That boy who had once spent whole days reading and discussing Newton and Locke, who used to sit in his father’s lap and listen to his stories, who had so eagerly boarded that ship to New York—he was still there. And perhaps, George thought, if presented with an opportunity to reconsider his life, the Dhani he had lost that winter night would return.

George pursed his lips before beginning, “Dhani.”

The young man spoke only with his eyes, distracted, disillusioned, dissatisfied.

“Before I die, there is something else you must know.”

“Father,” he urged. “Don’t say that you will die! You’ll curse yourself!”

“Oh, please!” the old man wheezed. “Let me finish!”

Dhani reluctantly slunk into the shadows, not a word of protest escaping his lips.

“I tell you this not because I feel as though my final hour is upon me, but because I wholeheartedly believe that you are ready to hear it. 

“I can avoid it no longer,” George admitted. “And I was wrong to ever have done so.”

Dhani frowned as his father held his hand in his, tracing his knuckles with his thumb.

“So,” the old man sighed. “Here it is—Dhani, my boy, you were born out of wedlock.”

Dhani felt his cheeks flame, but other than that, he felt nothing.

It was funny, he thought, that he was so overwhelmed by everything that had happened—from his father being stabbed, to his episode the other day, and even the analysis of the sea witch’s prophecy—that nothing seemed to surprise him anymore.

George tried his best to get a look at the boy’s face.

But as he caught sight of his cheek, paled by the light of the moon that shone through the window, Dhani unexplainably, and immensely strangely, began to sob.

“Dhani…” George gasped.

The weeping young man swatted him away, unable to process his surroundings, and stood up.

He lit a candle without thinking as crocodile tears fell down his face, trailing his flesh like monsoon rains on a pane of glass.

His father spoke in a hushed voice behind him, but it was all white noise to Dhani. Sounds without shapes, words without meanings. It was indecipherable.

“I’m going downstairs,” he mumbled, candle shaking in his hands, as the flickering flame did atop the wax man’s head.

George spoke, Dhani nodded, and the door shut behind him with a soft click.

An hour passed, and the young man had collapsed on the parlor floor, no tears left to cry as he stared at the poised faces in the portrait above him.

Their familiar eyes ignored him, and yet somehow bled contempt, smirks hidden over beards and under noses with an air of superior sameness.

It was almost tragic, the dazed man thought, how much that horrible warlock looked like his parents—he was a near-perfect cross of both of them, resembling his father just a tad bit more.

For heaven’s sake, just the thought of Sean made him lose it again, shaking his head as though it were a coin at the end of a string.

Dhani was  _ nothing  _ like that man, he thought. He couldn’t be.

And yet he was.

They were both bastards in their own right.

But the difference, Dhani thought, was that he was not the manipulator that Sean—that that  _ thing  _ who had dragged him to that cursed frozen city—was.

He had tricked him, that cunning little beast; that was the name of his game. He lured his prey in like a siren, singing songs of friendliness, of inoffensive relatability. But beneath every siren, no matter how beautiful, was a skeleton, a bleak, sharp-toothed reflection of their one true desire—to kill.  


Dhani laughed.

He was smarter than the warlock wanted to believe, and he knew it.

He would  _ not _ , under any circumstances, fall for his games any longer.

In fact, he would beat him at them before he could ever know what had happened.

It was his only choice.

  
  



	43. A Picture of a Man in the Clouds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the company assembles through no pre-established plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Real quick— so AO3 was acting funky when I uploaded the last chapter (Women, Warlocks, and Charles II) and put it with the fics updated on August 6th, even though it was the 12th when I updated it. You could theoretically read this one without the last, but I strongly recommend it.
> 
> Thank you, and as always, enjoy.

No one was sure how it had happened that bitter evening, but somehow, the company had, through some coincidence, all assembled for dinner. 

There was no invitation sent out, no person sent for. 

It was as if fate itself brought them together, the woman of black, the sunflower, the doll, the apprentice, the warlock, the madman, the gold-wearing siren, and the blue-eyed cecaelia. 

And if there ever was an embodiment of this invisible, unstoppable force that was fate, then it was without a doubt the heavy sheet of fog smothered the town that night, concealing the tips of the trees and frightening travelers away from their destinations. 

You would have thought that Sean, Julian, Macca, and Ringo would have had the common sense to stay in their homes that night.

Yet there they all were, gathered around the table eating supper.

If the events of the night were not so tragic, then perhaps our ill-fated company would have taken some more time to stop and ponder the oddity of it all.

“You are all awfully quiet,” Ringo noted, struggling to cut himself a piece of bread. “Have I missed something?”

Yoko pulled her teacup from her lips. “I suppose we simply have nothing to say.”

“Oh,” Kyoko groaned. “But we’ve everything!”

Ringo cocked an eyebrow. “Such as?”

“The prophecy!” the woman cried. “Perhaps I am the only one, although I’d much prefer to know what shall happen to us all as opposed to sitting in the dark without a clue.”

“Well,” Macca sighed. “I’m afraid you’ll have to take the latter, then.”

“Don’t any of us have a single idea, at least, as to what the bird is going to do?”

“It’s going to try and finish what it started,” Julian said, swallowing a cut of cod. “What  _ Ethelein _ started, that is.”

“Well then,” Sean jeered. “I suppose we’d better be prepared to tell him Father’s body was cremated.”

Surprisingly, the young man’s joke didn’t earn so much as a snicker. It did, however, earn him quite the scolding from his mother.

Sensitive subject, he thought to himself.

“Oh,” Macca furrowed his brow. “You know very well what he means.”

“The soul reading,” Sean said.

“Precisely.”

“Well how is he supposed to finish it? My father is dead.”

“Perhaps he can continue it in spirit?” Yoko suggested. 

“No,” The siren shook his head. “He would need him to be alive.”

His face suddenly contorted.

“At the very least,” he sighed. “He would need his blood.”

The old woman tensed. 

“How would he get that?” Dhani asked. “His body was burned.”

Julian shook his head. “He tried to grab the spectacles… perhaps he’s already got some.”

Macca pursed his lips. “It’s not very likely, really. You figure,” He swallowed. “It’s quite…  _ dry  _ after all this time. I don’t think he could get enough to actually do anything.”

“Would he even remember how to read souls?” Ringo asked.

The siren raised his eyebrows. “After thirty years, I’d be very surprised. I mean, he can hardly even speak.”

“Hardly?” Sean deadpanned.

Macca was beginning to think the young man was out to give him a stress-induced heart attack.

“Poor choice of words…” he mumbled.

The baker smirked. “Is it? It seems more likely to me that you’ve begun to believe my little theory.”

Julian stifled a laugh. “Which one?”

Dhani narrowed his eyes at the warlock. “Don’t you get cocky, you bastard.”

Both George and Yoko scolded him.

But Sean, on the other hand, seized the opportunity.

“My,” he cried, a massive grin on his face as he feigned pompousness, hoping to lift his newfound friend from whatever had seized him by the testicles and sucked all the joy from his soul. “I? A bastard! Why it could simply never be true, your highness!”

Dhani drew back. “If that is what you think of me, Mister Lennon—”

“ _ Ono  _ Lennon,” the baker corrected.

“If that is what you think of me, Sean, then you should know that the crown is naturally dead upon my head.”

Sean’s smile only grew wider. “By virtue of…?”

“By virtue of Catholicism,” Dhani spat. “And more importantly, the state of being a bastard.”

The young man sat in stunned silence for a moment.

Julian simply sipped his ale, wishing wholeheartedly he had never told Sean of the Harrisons’ less-than-stellar family history. 

“You would think me a fool, Sean, to assume I will tolerate any insults to my name and reputation—especially from the likes of  _ you _ .”

“I…” The young man laughed. “I was not aware you were conscious of your bastardry.”

“Then perhaps you should not assume anything about me,” Dhani said, a razor-sharp edge to his voice.

“Perhaps not,” Sean answered, his smile vanishing. “And...do forgive me for having offended you, Dhani—”

“Sir Harrison.”

The baker’s face fell. “I thought we’d gone over th… Just,” He placed a hand to his breast. “Regardless, know that my intent was only ever to make light of that fact that—”

Again, Dhani cut him off. “To make light of the sins of my forefathers? That’s quite a stance, coming from you.”

“That’s  _ enough _ ,” Yoko warned, speaking with the assertiveness of a true captain. “I’ll not have you in my house and slandering my son.”

“And I likewise,” George added. “I’ve raised you better than to speak to your fellow men in such a tone.”

Dhani did not meet the man’s eye.

“For shame…” Sir Harrison murmured. “Do forgive him, Sean. I’ve not the slightest idea what’s gotten into him.”

Yoko opened her mouth to speak, but her words were overridden by her son’s.

“I understand,” he said, worlds more serious than he had been mere minutes ago. “And do know, sir, that I, too, apologize.”

“Oh,” Yoko began. “You needn’t—”

“May I please finish?” Sean asked.

After a quick raise of the eyebrows, the old woman nodded.

“Thank you. I was out of justification, truly, in my taunting you, Dhani. I had understood it to be a harmless sort of joke, although… I suppose it’s somewhat of a sensitive issue to you.”

Dhani said nothing.

“If I had been aware of that, then I never would have done it.” 

The young Sir Harrison studied the warlock’s face, watching every little movement taking place upon his face, from the batting of his eyelashes to the flinching in the corner of the young man’s mouth.

Sean was a good liar, he thought. He knew how to speak and conduct himself in such a way that, when observed by the unassuming eye, he seemed to bleed sincerity.

But Dhani could tell that something was off. He spoke as though he was, even if only slightly, afraid. 

The young Sir Harrison took a strange sort of delight in his fear; the warlock was beginning to realize that he was close to losing his trust—something that just couldn’t happen if he was going to execute his master plan.

“You are forgiven,” the young man said dryly.

Sean nodded. “Thank you.”

“Now that you’ve finished your little outburst,” Macca sighed. “Can we please get on with things?”

The baker turned to him. “Certainly, sir.”

“Thank you!” The siren crossed his arms. “Now, I hate to be the one to inform you, but the price of wasting any more of our time is our lives. Perhaps you haven’t thought of it, but the stakes are much too high to sit and bicker with one another, to steer conversations away from their original subject—”

“To lecture others on the management of time?” George asked.

Macca took a deep breath. He was having  _ years  _ taken off of his life at that point. 

“I suppose so,” he conceded. “Now where were we before all of this?” 

“My theory,” Sean said. “That the bird must be a combination of several different people.”

Kyoko cut into her potatoes. “I still propose it could be reflections of Ethelein’s personality,” she stated. “That way it satisfies both perception and possibility.”

Julian frowned. “It’s a wise idea, although I have a hard time believing Iyera is merely a reflection of Ethelein’s personality.”

Macca felt his skin grow hot. “It isn’t—”

“And the attachment to me,” Ringo added, his fingers toying with his necklace. “It’s as if it’s afraid of anyone else. Like it needs to be around me to feel safe.”

“Well, that’s certainly not Iyera, then,” Macca snarled. “Quite honestly, I find it rather offensive of you to insinuate my mate is a demon.”

The octopus-man paused, a look of null confusion on his face.

“I’ve no intent to offend you, sir,” Sean retorted. “And I never have. But you must understand, I’m only trying to rationalize what I’ve seen!”

_ Here _ , the silver had said.

“Then I don’t think that’s the way to go about it,” Macca tossed his slipping veil back behind his neck. “If you ask me, in fact, you’ve been over-complicating things this entire time.”

_ I’m right here,  _ Rette had cried, his voice cracked and foreign to his body.

Sean frowned. “I disagree with that, sir. I, personally, am of the belief that a complicated question requires a complicated answer.”

_ Ingho _ , the bird had screeched as it dove towards the cecaelia.

“That doesn’t give you any license to question possibility!”

Ringo brought his hand to his mouth. 

He should have seen it sooner. 

“Macca,” he whispered. “I think he’s right.”

The siren turned swiftly to him, bewilderment in his eyes. 

“You too?”

Ringo nodded, his eyes meandering around the table. “You know, it makes sense. Ethelein is in there as the  _ sje’inn’a’e _ , Iyera is in there somehow speaking to us…” He paused. “John, I’m not so sure about, but—I do think a case could be made for Rette.”

Macca furrowed his brow.

George tilted his head. “Truly?”

“Truly,” the octopus-man confirmed.

“Look,” Macca sighed, his voice sounding tired and frustrated. “At this point, we may as well say everyone we’ve ever known is inside of that bird. You have to draw the line somewhere!”

“No,” Ringo said. “Think about it. I dreamed of Rette telling me he was here, and every time the mirror turns blue— _ like a blue crab _ —the bird acts as though it can’t go a day without me!”

“Wait,” Julian interrupted, raising a finger in the air. “Just a moment. Who is this Rette fellow?”

Macca sighed. “Ringo’s dead mate.”

“He was very attached to me,” the octopus-man added. “By the end of his life. I don’t know if he ever trusted anyone else the same way.”

Sean pursed his lips. “Then in that case, I can see it.”

“No!” Macca groaned. “Don’t you get it by now? It  _ isn’t possible _ .”

“Then prove it,” Yoko said, all eyes on her as she set down her tea. “Look in that book you’ve got and prove us wrong.”

The siren drew back.

“Very well then,” he hissed. “I left it in the parlor, if someone would be so kind as to get it.”

“I’m on it,” Julian announced, already halfway out the door.

Macca turned to his old captain. “And just so you’re aware, I do not take dares when it comes to magic.”

Yoko shook her head. “And I never said you did.”

“Easy,” George sighed. “The last thing we need is a duel.”

The book fell in Macca’s arms with a soft thud. 

“Wonderful,” he said. “Thank you, Jude.”

“Anytime.”

“Now,” The siren met Yoko’s eyes. “Let’s settle this once and for all, shall we?”

“I thought we weren’t going to waste any more time,” Dhani grumbled.

George hit his shoulder with the back of his hand, not hard enough to hurt him, but just hard enough to send the message across.

Macca cleared his throat. He knew exactly what to read.

“‘A non-magical family/tribe member or friend,’” he began. ‘“Cannot under any circumstances haunt a person as a sje’inn’a’e. Any evidence suggesting that such a thing may be happening shall surely have another, more mild explanation.’”

The siren raised his eyebrows.

“It’s from the very first page,” he said. “I don’t know what else you want.”

Ringo rested his cheek on his hand, his tentacles seizing control of the book as he drew it nearer to himself. “Surely there’s more…”

Macca shook his head as pages turned. “You can see for yourself, if you please.”

“Here,” the octopus-man announced. “At the very end—‘Contemporary Theories on Sje’inn’a’e’. There’s a section here listed as ‘The Idea of The  _ Sje’inn’a’e _ Complex.’”

The siren frowned. “I haven’t read that bit yet,” he said. “Could you read it, please?”

“In English?”

“If you feel comfortable.”

Ringo sighed. “Why don’t you do it?”

“Oh,” Sean groaned. “Just get on with it!” 

Macca set the book in his lap. “I am, I am… You ought be more patient, you know.”

“Now,” he continued. “‘The Idea of The  _ Sje’inn’a’e _ Complex:

“‘This theory, first noted by myself, the chaplain Dranatch Yekte of the Foryan Convent, in the early days of this past revolution, states the following:

“‘In certain circumstances, particularly when the  _ sje’inn’a’e’s _ mission relates primarily to a specific person—or perhaps even a specific  _ group _ of people, although this is merely an unfounded theoretical extension—’”

Sean leaned forward, pressing his elbows upon his knees.

Macca swallowed. “‘I find it likely, or at the very least possible, that the  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ may indeed possess the ability to reap the souls of those close, or in some way related to, their chosen target. 

“‘Indeed, if they are powerful enough, and not below a certain unintelligent level of sentience, the  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ could theoretically employ the souls of their target’s loved ones as a means to completing their mission.’”

Julian leaned back in his chair.

‘“Most likely, these reaped souls would be those of a mate, a sibling, or perhaps even a close friend.’”

Ringo drew circles on his pendant.

‘“While in the process of crossing from the Sea of Time to the Sea of Holes, the soul is, of course, at its weakest point, as the Chausjaeniel magician Edscae Aulgav found in her groundbreaking essay, ‘Strength of the Soul in Life and Death.’ 

“‘It is upon this base, then, that I propose the following—a soul, newly detached from its body, is able to be sensed by a  _ sje’inn’a’e _ , just as it is sensed by the worst of beasts in the Sea of Monsters, and the best of citizens in the Sea of Green. 

“‘Should the Yaer Imi’s tapestry dictate it, the  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ is then cast forth to the soul, surrounding it as a mother surrounds her young in cloth, and ultimately restoring it in a new body—that of the  _ sje’inn’a’e’s _ .’”

Yoko pursed her lips.

‘“Still,’” Macca continued. ‘“I must acknowledge that this theory is highly experimental and purely theoretical in nature. Spare for a small number of poorly-written and academically dubious accounts, there is no anecdotal evidence of the  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ complex.

‘“I wait eagerly for the truth to be revealed.’”

For an awfully long time, the siren was silent, biting his tongue as he reread the words in front of him. 

Dhani looked up at Sean, unsure of what he would find on the man’s face. Contempt, perhaps, or even joy. He expected the warlock to, at some level, take delight in his correctness, as it only made sense to do so. 

But instead, Sean wore a rather blank expression, emotion only signified by the slight furrow of his brow.

His cheeks were a pale shade of rose, his eyes glassy, somehow perfectly focused upon nothing at all.

Not a frown nor a smile spread across his chin, a simple, inexpressive pair of lips in their place.

“You were right,” Kyoko croaked, pressing the heel of her foot against the glass wall of silence that had erected itself. 

Sean frowned, seeming rather dazed.

“You’ve been right from the very beginning…”

“Nay,” The young man shook his head. “Nay, I was not. I never was at all.”

Kyoko tilted her head lovingly. “Was it not you who first suggested John could have just as well been the bird?”

Sean’s hands shook, and in an uncharacteristically meek tone, he let out a small laugh.

“Why,” he whispered, his eyebrows raising as he ran a hand through his hair. “I never expected myself to be correct!”

“You didn’t?” Macca asked.

“Nay! Never, I…” He shook his head. “My God, just a month ago, I had never been one to believe in specters, or witches, or ghosts, or… or anything at all!”

George sighed. “It’s hard not to believe in such things when they present themselves on your dining room table.”

Sean blinked, if only to wake himself from his dream.

He had been  _ right _ .

The bird was a compound of many different people. It was Ethelein, it was Iyera, it was Rette—it was  _ his father _ .

For as much as he had advocated for the theory, it was hard for him to believe it was real. 

He had been speaking to his father, he thought, for the past month, for what felt like the first time in his entire life, and somehow, from beyond the grave, he had understood him.

At last, he thought, the witches’ son was good for something. 

“So…” Julian began. “He was right?”

Macca tried his best to suppress the acid rising in his throat. 

“Apparently,” he mumbled.

“So it’s Ethelein, then,” Yoko said. “And he has John’s soul.”

The siren nodded, convinced he was going to faint.

“And Rette’s.”

He shut his eyes tight.

“And Iye—”

“Aye,” he answered, the word nearly choking him. 

Julian put his head in his hands. 

“As if the world needed John to come back,” he said, his head shaking like a leaf on a tree. 

In his mind, he could already see the man. He saw him old, young, angry, pleased, fully alive and covered in blood. He stood in his kitchen, upon the deck of the  _ Sgt. Pepper _ , down below in his quarters, on the sand in Gibraltar, in Yoko’s arms in front of the portrait-painter, and beneath her knees in front of his front door.

He already saw him leaving on that ship.

The longshoreman’s heartbeat jumped. 

John, he had thought, however noble or terrible he had been, had left the Earth on the evening of the eighth of December in the year 1720.

But he never had, he realized.

He had never left, he had simply returned in a new form.

In place of skin, he had feathers. In place of a mouth, he had a beak.

A dreadful, unexplainably familiar feeling rose from his stomach to his cheeks. 

He met Sean’s eye, his face grim as though his name was Death. 

“I never should have shown you that bird,” he seethed.

The young man’s face fell. “Lord,” he whispered. “Don’t say that!”

“Why not?” Julian grumbled. “I showed it to you, and now look where we are!”

Sean flushed. “And what would I have done without it? Was I just supposed to stand there feeling sorry for myself?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he cringed. Yes, he thought, he was. It was a bloody  _ funeral _ . 

He had been  _ five. _

It frustrated him to no end that even after his great realization—that is to say, even after realizing he had never truly grieved for his father—he still felt as though he wasn’t allowed to. He still felt that his mother’s grief overshadowed his, and thus should always take precedence over his own emotions.

Of course, it would take a very long time for him to come to terms with his grief. For all he knew, it would take another twenty years and five days until he could accept his feelings, and finally be free of his father’s ghost.

He just had to be patient, he reminded himself.

But being patient was so hard.

“Please,” Kyoko interjected. “If I may ask… what on Earth are you two saying?”

Julian sighed, his foot tapping in a quick, staccato rhythm as he explained, “On the day of my father’s funeral, I spotted a bird in the snow. I pointed it out to Sean, hoping to console him in some way, and it was not until this month that we realized it must have been Ethelein.”

Macca gasped. “Are- are you sure?”

Sean nodded. “Unless my memory fails me, yes. I remember it as a dove, he remembers it to be a pigeon…”

The siren covered his mouth, his head shaking as anger gleamed in his eyes.

“If I had known it was John,” Julian groaned. “Then I would have chased it out to Canada.”

“Julian, why are you doing this?” Sean cried, frustrated. “Why do you feel such an overwhelming need to crush the one good memory I have of those days?”

His brother flinched at his tone, but held steadfast to his position.

“You are more than welcome to challenge me on this,” he said, silently praying no one would notice his shaking hands. “But speaking purely from my own experience and expressing my own opinion, I find the thought of John returning from the dead—be it as a bird or else—rather unappealing.”

Now, as controversial as Julian knew his stance would be (in fact, he was already coming up with better ways he could have said it) and as much as he knew it would upset his stepmother, nothing could have prepared him for the bedlam his words would unfold. 

In hindsight, it was the fault of everyone, the result of mixing together stress, trauma, stubbornness, self-righteousness, and ignorance.

But nonetheless, the chaos began when Yoko swiftly rushed to defend her son, automatically siding with him as she asked Julian, “Are you implying that he deserved to die?”

The longshoreman locked his eyes on the woman. 

“I am only implying that he was not the sinless martyr you’ve made him out to be,” he scorched. “And frankly, I find it more than pitiful that you’ve taken advantage of his death to push that narrative onto Sean!”

George shook his head, his hand pressed to his chin as he watched in curious neutrality.

“I beg your pardon?” Yoko asked, incredulous.

Julian drew a deep breath in. “I find it likely,” he began, cheeks flaming. “That you’ve purposely withheld information about John from Sean, so to construct a dishonest version of him that you find more palatable than reality.”

At that point Sean had to get involved.

“And what is your evidence of this?” he asked. “For God’s sake, you haven’t seen her in twenty years!”

“Well, I’ve spoken to you,” the longshoreman retorted. “Don’t you remember that day in the church? How I told you those things you had never heard before?” 

Kyoko tried to no avail to de-escalate the situation, gently advising her stepbrother that it was unwise to make unfounded assumptions about people, but was overshadowed by the sound of Sean shouting.

“Who are you to tell me how I feel about it?” he screeched. 

Julian crossed his arms. “Who I am is your brother.”

“ _ Half _ -brother,” Sean insisted.

Somehow, hearing him say that hurt Julian more than anything else.

It had been Sean, after all, who had always disregarded the technicality of the term, writing time and time again in their letters that it implied a lesser degree of familiarity, which, for the two of them, he felt was inaccurate.

They were rather close, he wrote, and he did not want that closeness diminished in any way.

Until that moment, at least.

Still reeling from the jab, Julian opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by Yoko, who addressed him with an edge to her voice and said, “In the same way you feel I’ve turned John into a martyr—which I still disagree with, mind you—I would venture to say you’re much too eager to criticize him.”

“In that case,” Julian sighed. “I apologize for seeing him without rose-colored lenses over my eyes.”

Yoko shook her head. “And I for caring about my husband’s reputation.”

A moment passed in tense silence, and for a moment it seemed as though the argument was resolved.

Until the old woman continued, “You know, if you want to drag Sean into this, then you can ask him what he thinks. Perhaps you find it impossible, but he does have something of a brain in his head.”

“Very well,” Julian conceded. “Sean, what do you think?”

The baker’s cheeks burned hotter than hell, wishing sincerely the dove would swoop in from the window and take him up into the air. 

“About what, exactly?” he grumbled.

“Your father,” Yoko said.

He took a deep breath. 

It was hard to say what he remembered about the man, because truth be told, he didn’t have many memories of him. 

But the ones he did have, he wondered, were they biased somehow? Was he more inclined to remember the bad parts of his father, or the good?

He was being torn apart from all sides, it seemed. With few memories of his own, he was left to choose either his mother’s or Julian’s depiction of the man.

Essentially, he was choosing who he trusted more.

It was incredibly stressful, then, for no matter who he chose, he would be implying he thought one of them was lying.

He couldn’t just come out and say he wasn’t sure, either. If he did that, then his mother would claim victory by default.

Sean and Yoko were John’s family, after all; they were the two people he had spent the most time with, up until his death. 

So if his son was unable to answer the question, his widow would claim that because she was the last person to see him and could comprehend his actions as an adult, she was correct.

At the same time, however, a thought gnawed at the young man’s mind, lurking deep in the corners of his skull to present itself at just the right moment.

His mother would, undoubtedly so, protect his father’s legacy at any cost.

It was his legacy, after all, that had gotten him shot all those years ago. It was the legacy of their family name that kept them on the outside of society, that cast suspicion on them every time it so much as rained, that kept Sean a loner in the woods, with only his brother to write to.

It was only natural that, after everything, the two of them would be inclined to defend themselves.

For Sean, that meant proving to his master that he could bake a decently competent loaf of bread.

But for his mother, that meant choosing her husband’s legacy as the hill she would die on.

She was well-intentioned, he thought, but from her dying hill she was prone to exaggerate things. Looking up at the sky, she drew a picture of a man in the clouds, one shaped by her grief for him. And he didn’t look quite the same as he really did.

In a low voice, staring down at his plate, Sean said, “I think Julian may have a point.”

Yoko pursed her lips.

“In what exactly?” she asked, her tone so low only the worms could hear it.

“All I think is that you tend to sometimes romanticize things related to Father. Now, I don’t appreciate that he made such a baseless claim against you, but baseless as it is, it must have some truth to it.”

He sighed.

“Is it too much to ask to end the discussion there?”

“Well,” the old woman said, her face blank. “I just happen to disagree with you there.”

“Yoko,” Macca urged. “Please.”

“What?” she asked indignantly. “Julian stated his opinion, I stated mine!”

“You mustn’t be so stubborn,” George said, coughing into his handkerchief. “There comes a point where you have to realize you’re wrong.”

“It isn’t a matter of right and wrong,” Yoko countered. “It is a matter of speaking ill of the dead.”

Julian shook his head. “Death doesn’t shield anyone from criticism!” he cried. “Should we not criticize Guy Fawkes only because he is dead?”

Kyoko tensed. It was difficult for her to watch any argument, being such an inoffensive woman in her own right, but doubly so when the subject was her stepfather’s legacy.

She understood perfectly well that her mother had adored the man, and that Julian did not think very highly of him. That she had gathered within days of reuniting with them.

But she did not seem worthy to make any judgement on John. She remembered him to be just fine, if not a bit brash. 

Still, memory is nothing in comparison to observed opinion from authority—even unreliable authority.

Like most things having to do with her life, Kyoko’s opinion of her stepfather had changed dramatically after she left New York.

Her father, reasonably so, had never been terribly fond of John (or, for that matter, her mother.) But he took it to such an extreme that once he had come into possession of the girl, he had raised her on a steady diet of lies.

John and Yoko were witches.

John and Yoko were sodomites.

He even went so far once as to claim they were agents of the antichrist. 

Needless to say, those sorts of things were very difficult to unlearn. It was not until she had reunited with her mother, really, that Kyoko became convinced otherwise.

But when she had returned, John was dead.

That was it—her opinion of him would have to be biased because she had been lied to, her childhood memories had been manipulated, and John couldn’t confirm or deny her thoughts on the basis of being ashes in the forest. 

She would just have to sit back and watch, she thought, praying that nothing would get too out of hand.

“Guy Fawkes,” Yoko laughed. “Is not even  _ close _ in league to your father! If that’s truly what you think, then I take pity on you.”

“Yoko-” Macca was already too late.

“First of all,” Julian said, raising his voice. “I’ll make one thing  _ crystal  _ clear: I do not need—and especially do not want—your pity.”

“Very well, then.”

“And second of all, I was never implying the two were close in league, or should be remembered the same.”

“So then don’t phrase it like that’s what you mean!” Yoko cried. 

“May I-”

“It’s that simple!”

“Yoko,” George began. “Let him off.”

Julian raised his voice another level, thus escalating the situation, as he repeated, “May I please continue?”

The old woman crossed her arms. “Go ahead.”

“ _ All _ I was implying,” the longshoreman continued, his hands now visibly shaking. “Was that you can’t say not to speak ill of the dead while making exceptions for those most heinous of men, in our case, Guy Fawkes. Either everyone is able to be criticized in death, or no one is.”

“Alright,” Yoko conceded. “Sure. But that doesn’t mean I have to appreciate—or  _ tolerate _ —you trying to make my husband out to be some kind of a monster!”

“For the hundredth time, I’m not!” Julian cried.

“Yes, you are.”

“All I’m trying to do is correct the ‘truth’ you’ve peddled onto Sean about his father!”

“Don’t you bring him into this!” Yoko shouted.

Sean cringed, wishing sincerely as voices shouted all around him that his body was hanging limp from a noose and not seated at that cursed table. 

“Tell me, please,” Julian demanded. “ _ Indulge  _ me, even! How does this  _ not  _ involve him?” 

“What he thinks about his father is his own business, and his alone!”

“Well, it becomes my business when what he thinks is influenced by your intentions!”

“And what are those?” Yoko spat. “If you know me  _ so well _ , then what are my intentions?”

“Mother,” Sean begged.

“Certainly not to be honest about him!” Julian cried.

“Mother!”

“Oh, I’m sure. Because the other people of this town sure would be, wouldn’t they? They’d just tell him such lovely things!”

Sean couldn’t take it anymore.

“Mother,” he began, “For the love of  _ God— _ ”

Yoko didn’t bother looking his way as she said, exhausted, “John, not now!”

A stunned silence struck the room, as if a bolt of lightning had cracked the table in two.

Julian’s mouth was held open, agape.

Kyoko drew her hand over her lips.

Macca drew back, his brow furrowed.

Ringo froze.

George lifted his fingers from his chin, his eyes blinking as if he couldn’t believe what he had heard.

Dhani’s eyes darted towards the baker.

And Yoko pursed her lips, her head slowly turning and her face as red as the rising sun as Sean whispered, his voice heavy as lead, “Pardon?” 

The old woman tried to speak, but was only able to stutter, “I-”

“Could you please repeat that?” he asked. “What you just said, please?”

Yoko swallowed. “ _ Sean _ , I… I was confused.”

The young man shook his head, an incredulous smile on his face. 

A strangled laugh arose from his throat, but was quickly suppressed. Sean’s face grew somber, his lips disappearing inside of his mouth as he pushed out his chair and stood up.

“Sean,” Yoko whispered.

He held out his hand to his mother, his head finally rising to look at the company as he began, “Thank you, all of you, for your time. Supper was nice. But I… I ought be leaving now.” 

“Where are you going?” Yoko asked as her son made his way into the foyer.

Sean shook his head as he wrapped his cloak around him. 

“I’ll let you know once I’m there,” he mumbled.

The old woman stood up, her fingertips pressed to the table. 

“When are you going to come back?” she asked, her voice raised and riddled with anxiety. 

The baker shrugged, pulling his gloves over his trembling hands. 

He was certain if he spoke another word, he wouldn’t be able to contain himself.

“Sean,” Yoko said, her tone deadly serious as she rushed into the hallway. “Sean, when are you coming back?”

Just as she reached the coat rack, her hand extended in the air, as a child reaching out to touch a rose, the door shut in her face. 


	44. An Object in Motion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sean wanders through the fog.

As the fog curled up around his knees, brushing against his britches like a cat begging to be pet, Sean took in a deep breath of the cold air. 

It was harsh, he thought, the temperature registering somewhere between a scant ten and twenty degrees, but feeling the winter air fill his lungs, he was somewhat—if only slightly—relieved.

Turning around, it occurred to the young man that he was no longer able to see his mother’s house. Whether this was because he had trudged far from the so-called ‘Witches’ Cottage’ or simply a trick of the fog, he wasn’t sure.

But he was sure, walking along the road, that no one would be able to find him in such poor weather. 

He was, for all intents and purposes, alone with his thoughts at last.

He sniffled, his chest heaving as the cold air caressed his flaming cheeks.

After twenty years of raising her son without a father, watching him grow to be a man and develop a personality, his mother had somehow called him by his father’s name.

In his pain, Sean wasn’t willing to give the woman the benefit of the doubt. She hadn’t just been confused, he thought, she had legitimately thought for a moment that it was her dead husband calling out to her and not the son she had birthed and raised.

But why, he wondered, what had he done to make her think that he was John? 

He considered, at first, the possibility that it was simply resemblance. He had been told an uncountable number of times, after all, that he looked very similar to the man. 

But that couldn’t be right. It couldn’t have possibly been that after so much time, his mother had honestly thought the dead had been resurrected and sat next to her at supper. 

So then, perhaps it was something in the tone of his voice. 

That could have been it, he admitted to himself, although he didn’t quite remember what the man’s voice had sounded like.

He knew it was quite high-pitched for a man, a rather distinguishable sort of sound that seemed to originate in the bridge of his nose.

If his memory did not fail him, then surely that could have been the case. His own voice, after all, was very high, thanks to the birdlike voice of his mother, and bore the same nasal edge to it that had so differentiated his father’s. 

But Sean had called out for his mother specifically, referring to her by that exact title.

Had his father ever done that? 

He sure didn’t think so.

God, he thought, blinking to keep the tears from falling down his face, what he needed was a sign, an omen, a vision,  _ anything _ . What he needed was to know why.

Surely, he thought, it was his intellect that had caused the infamous case of mistaken identity. It was that brain he had somewhere up in his skull, the one that his mother had so often compared to that of his father’s.

He was clever like him, she would say; he shared the man’s sense of humor. 

The list could go on for days, full of inaccuracies and half-truths, including everything from how he approached problems to how he analyzed “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

It must have been that, he thought, coupled with resemblance in the face and voice. 

She didn’t see him as who he was. She saw him as an extension of his father, a mirror-image that could not be unalike in any way. 

At last, the stone in Sean’s throat turned to a boulder, directing the stream of tears around his hot-and-cold cheeks in a single, staggered flow.

How cruel was it, he thought, that in a town where he would only ever be known as the Witches’ Son, assumed to be just the same as his parents, or rather, the public perception of them, even his own mother saw him as nothing more. 

There was not a soul on Earth that truly knew him, he lamented. Not Julian nor Kyoko, nor Mister Hocke, nor the blasted bastard  _ Sir Harrison _ .

He was fated to have his biography written by the cold, dead hand of his father, and that would never change, unless, by some miracle, the townspeople came to accept him as a human being that breathed and talked and worked for too small of a wage.

What a fantasy. 

Wiping at his eyes with the cuff of his jacket, Sean looked up to see, much to his surprise, that he had walked all the way to the market square.

Or at least, what seemed to be the market square. Draped in the blanket of fog, it was quite difficult to tell. 

He walked into the center, turning his head all around him to see the abandoned stalls and shops, their goods taken home for the evening and their lights all extinguished, apart from the single beacon of light and noise came from the tavern at the end of the street, ironically enough, placed right beside the church. 

From it, Sean heard the shouts and banter of drunken men, all clamoring for the attention of the maid handing them their ale, and thought to himself, what good would it serve him to go in? 

He could drink himself into oblivion, but only until someone recognized him as the Witches’ Son. Truth be told, he was better off just going home and downing whatever applejack he had left in the house. 

But he couldn’t go home, he thought. He didn’t want to be there when Julian inevitably came by, rushing to console him as he scorned his stepmother, accusing her of all manner of things and damning her to hell for the rest of time. 

For the time being, he just wanted to be by himself, away from the familiarity of his house, away from the chaos of his mother’s.

But standing outside the tavern was an invitation to be beaten, and he couldn’t exactly have stood in the market square forever.

The church, he thought, could have been a good choice, although he was certain he wasn’t allowed inside. 

Strawberry Fields was too deep in the woods—Sean would end up lost and mauled by a bear if he went there. Not to mention the incredibly sensitive nature of the place.

He supposed he could somehow find his way to Hocke’s bakery, but in all honesty, he just wanted to collapse somewhere nearby and think for a while. 

He sighed, wondering where on Earth he was going to go without being beaten, told to leave, or solicited by a prostitute, when, answering his earlier request, a sign appeared, fluttering its wings as its feet touched the ground. 

Sean turned around, his face contorting as the bird stared up at him with wide eyes as rich and black as tar. 

With a soft chirp, it nodded, greeting the man.

It expected him to bend down and pet it, as he so often did, or to at least greet it back; anything from a “Good evening,” to a simple nod of acknowledgement would have sufficed.

But instead, he simply stood on the cobblestone, his head bent down to look at the creature and his lips unmoving. 

His face was discolored, his cheeks as rosy as the dove’s little feet, his expression indescribably sad. It was as if someone had taken the man’s head and plucked out his eyes, leaving hollow sockets in their places, but keeping his brain intact.

He did seem to be deep in thought, the bird noted, weighing the outcomes of whatever action (or lack thereof) he decided to take. Sean’s lips were pursed, a known habit of his, and his brow furrowed as the thoughts seemed to swim around in his mind as a siren through the waves. 

The dove chirped again, this time with a slight tilt of its head, as if asking some kind of question.

But Sean did not answer.

The bird hesitated, wondering if the young man had heard him properly, and after a moment chirped a third time, lifting its beak a bit so that Sean might see it.

At last, the man shut his eyes and let out a sigh.

And then, as if the creature was not there, he turned around and began to walk towards the watchmaker’s shop.

The dove ran after him, its wings flapping as it alternated between having its feet on the ground and in the air, squawking away at him.

Sean swallowed, leaning purposefully on his right side so that he could avoid the sound as he dove into the alleyway.

But the bird was persistent, fear rising in its chest as it peered into the endless mist the young man tread towards. 

For a brief moment, it considered using its voice. It could call out to him, it thought, to truly grab his attention. If it could even still speak, it could shout his name, and he would turn around.

And it would talk to him.

But to incriminate itself like that… it wasn’t worth it.

So the dove kept on with its indecipherable squawking and cawing, its feet now decidedly in the air as its body zipped towards the man’s back in a rush to catch up with him.

Then, just as it thought it could dive up above his head and land in front of him, Sean stopped with a firm step of his boots, and the bird nearly crashed into his back.

“Tell me,” the young man began, his tone rather accusatory as he pivoted to face the creature. “Who am I speaking to?”

The dove’s eyes widened.

“Well?” Sean demanded. “Can you speak? Can you give me a sign of some type?”  He crossed his arms, impatient. 

He would have loved to consult the looking glass right about then, but of course, nothing that night could work in his favor, and the mirror had been left in his house, entrusted to the desk by the staircase. 

“God,” he moaned. “I’ll take anything! Anything you’ve got, just—”

The young man paused, drawing his index finger and his thumb to the bridge of his nose as he sighed, “You can nod, can’t you?”

The bird nodded its head slowly, growing displeased with where the conversation was headed. 

“Then let me phrase this another way,” Sean said. “Are you or are you not my father?”

The dove stood still, its head as unmoving as a tree trunk.

“Are you,” Sean repeated, slower. “Or are you not?”

The bird opened its beak a bit, and then shut it. 

It didn’t want to speak to him, if it could even speak at all, but… it was almost as if there was no fear of incrimination anymore.

Sean seemed to have it figured out, it thought. 

The bird blinked, its eyes focused on the stones it stood upon.

It could still answer the question without so much as a word. It could still keep its promise of silence.

But there was so much it could tell him, so much it  _ wanted  _ to tell him. It had to explain itself. It had to explain its discoveries.

“Yes or no?”

Unfortunately, its medium had already been selected.

With only a moment’s hesitation, the dove lifted its little white head, lowering it only slightly as it, for the first time, confirmed its identity.

And so was a pillar of white light revealed, metaphorically speaking, in the prism of newfound rationality.

Sean took a deep breath, partially as an expression of slight shock, and partially to keep himself from being flooded by his own emotions.

A long period of silence arose between the two, and the bird took particular notice of the lack of body language coming from Sean. It wasn’t sure if it was simply a trait of his, not to use any, or just a matter of him not having anything to say.

Of course, it found the latter very false, for after a moment, the young man shook his head, an almost pitiful laugh escaping him as he began, “I bet you think you’re clever, don’t you?”

The dove drew back.

But Sean only took a step forward, halfway between laughing and crying as he continued, “You think you’ve really found a way out of this whole thing, haven’t you?”

The bird let out a short, staggered chirp in response. 

It didn’t know how to answer that.

In fact, it didn’t know what the man meant at all.

Fortunately for it, however, Sean clarified his statement, his tone near malicious and his voice raising, saying, “You thought you could come back to a world with no consequences. You thought you could cheat death.”

The dove let out an angry squawk, offended he would go so far as to describe its own motives.

“No!” Sean interrupted. “No, you truly thought you could get out of here, and- and just leave me in your place to finish all the shit you started! Make  _ me  _ the one that decides how you should be remembered, when I don’t even remember you at all!”

The bird shook its head, by this point absolutely baffled as to what he was saying, but still somehow disagreeing with it. 

Sean laughed maniacally, running his hand through his hair as tears began to fall down his cheeks, shouting, “Listen to me, for better or for worse, I know what you a— I know what you  _ were _ . Lord, you thought you could escape all of it through death, didn’t you?”

The bird tilted its head, its eyes alarmed, confused, world-weary.

“Well, I’ll tell you this much,” the young man said, his voice low and nasal. “You thought wrong _. _ ” 

Sean’s chest heaved as he played the words back through his head, the only noise to be heard being his sharp inhales and staggered breaths.

He wiped at his eyes with his sleeve, his face deliberately diverted from the dove, hoping to God that its little black eyes were to low to the ground so as not to catch a glimpse of his tears.

He shouldn’t have been crying, he thought, not when he had just yelled at the poor thing.

He wanted to be angry, more than anything, and make no mistake, he absolutely was.

But he wasn’t angry enough for his own satisfaction.

To hell with it, a voice in his mind said, if only for one night, he was going to be whatever he was.

And he was going to revel in it.

The dove took a step forward, summoning Sean back to the alleyway, and met his gaze.

It seemed so patient, he thought, just standing there at his feet.

Slowly, he unclenched his fists, becoming very conscious, in that moment, of how he had nothing to do with his hands but keep them awkwardly at his side.

Again, the bird stepped towards him, this time with its eyes locked onto the man’s, as if waiting for some kind of signal.

“Go ahead,” Sean sighed, exhausted. “I’m not going to stop you.”

The dove nodded, and with careful, deliberate steps, moved closer and closer to the man’s boots, stopping only when its talons touched the toes.

Then, taking in a deep breath, it hopped onto Sean’s shoes, and pressed its body up against his stocking, cooing softly for him, as if in consultation.

The young man was unable to see the dove, as it was concealed by his cloak, but he knew it was trying as best as it could to hug him.

His tears dripping into the snow, he wasn’t sure if that was something good or bad. 

Maybe it was just something. Simply something that, for the first time in his entire grown life, made him feel something for his father.

And something was better than nothing, he thought as he curled his body over, waiting for the dove to hop off of him before he planted his knees in the snow.

His head lowered, and the bird’s raised, the creature now planted firmly on his knee.

It was strange, it thought, how the tables had turned there.

Once upon a time it was large and sat Sean on its knee, and now, as fate would have it, the opposite was true. 

The two went an awfully long time without speaking, until Sean finally leaned against the wall of the watchmaker’s shop, his eyes squinting to try and catch a glimpse of the sky as he sighed, “Why is it that I’ve everything to say to you, but no means by which to say it?”

The dove, still sitting comfortably in his lap, tilted its head thoughtfully and looked up at the young man, its eyes gleaming in the dim light of the tavern.

“Would you even understand?” Sean continued. “Can you truly understand what we say as a bird?”

The bird cooed softly.

“I suppose that’ll be a yes,” the young man said. “Now, answer me this—are you able to speak at all? As Iyera can, perhaps? Or are you simply mute in this form?”

For a moment, the bird bobbed its head back and forth, until in a decisive sigh, it answered, “ _ Ah chooz nosh zu spee _ .” 

Sean smiled nervously, asking, “Pardon me?”

Frustrated with its lack of annunciation, which it had no idea was so profound, the dove fluttered as it repeated, “ _ Ah choos nod do spee. _ ”

“You choose not to speak?”   
The bird nodded.

“Apart from just now, you mean?”

Somehow, without a proper mouth, the dove seemed to communicate a sort of sly smile, as though proud of itself for its single oxymoronic line of dialogue.

Seeing it, Sean couldn’t help but laugh, a wave of nostalgia crashing into his ribcage as he pictured his father’s face doing the exact same thing. 

Sighing at the thought, he returned his eyes to the sky, clouded with fog, with not a single star to be seen, and closed his eyes to allow himself a moment of peace in the cold, only to find the night-watchman, well-aware of Sean’s presence in the alleyway, his lantern extended into the dusty alleyway.

The bird jumped back at the sight, alarmed to see the furrowed brow of the old man, and let out a terrified squawk, causing Sean to snap right up and turn to the light, his own head drawing back as he caught sight of the man’s face. 

“Good God!” he cried, placing a hand to his chest. “Oh, sir, you must forgive me! I- I was not aware you were there!”

“You are forgiven,” the watchman said, his tone as cold as ice.

The dove’s eyes darted nervously between the two men, a sudden feeling of premonition arising in its winged body, as though the events about to unfold were so beyond its comprehension that any resistance was futile.

“Mister Lennon,” the man began. “Is it?”

“Yes, sir,” Sean said, clearing his throat. “That’s right.”

The watchman lifted an eyebrow.

“And who would you be, sir?”

“Mister Stephen Drury,” the man answered. “I am a chandler by day, and by night…”

The bird sunk low to the ground.

“I am a watchman of these woods.”

Sean swallowed, a grave realization presenting itself in his mind.

This, he thought, was not going to end well.

“Now,” Drury continued. “Might I ask you, Mister Lennon, who exactly you were speaking to?”

The young man paled, his pupils growing small as grains of sand.

This the dove saw as it fought back the temptation to claw at the watchman’s face until blood flowed like ale from a barrel down his chin. 

It wasn’t sure what exactly was preventing it from intervening, but whatever it was, it was growing stronger.

Sean held his mouth open, racking his brain to come up with something—at this point,  _ anything  _ to tell the man. 

“Forgive me, sir,” he answered at last. “I was speaking to myself.”

Drury raised an eyebrow.

“Then who was it that was answering?”

The bird’s eyes grew wide, and mere moments before it lept into action, ready to screech at the watchman until its vocal cords snapped, its mind was enveloped in an amethyst hue, its body relaxing as it straightened its spine.

Let it be, it thought, for it was meant to happen in time.

Sean felt as though he was about to vomit.

After everything his mother had done to keep him from falling victim to the accusations that had so haunted her and his father, he had failed her.

Never walk alone unless you absolutely have to, she had said.

Never allow yourself to be backed into a corner.

Never, never, never—but it was all preventative.

The thing about it was that once suspicion arose, there was nothing he could do about it. It was Newton’s first law of motion—an object in motion would stay in motion.

Just as our protagonist swallowed, opening his mouth to lie like he had never lied before, he heard the fluttering of wings from behind him.

Turning around at the speed of light, he was horrified to find nothing but fog above him, and nothing but stone to his side.

When he had needed it most, the bird had flown away.

If the situation was not so dire, the irony of it all would have made Sean cry with laughter.

“Why don’t you come with me,” Drury said, his eyes squinted at the baker.

“Oh no!” the young man said, standing straight up. “No, I’m afraid I really ought be going home… I had gone for a stroll, you see, although my—”

He cursed himself.

He knew better than to implicate his mother in all of this.

“Come,” Drury demanded. “For on suspicion of unlawful witchcraft, I must bring you immediately to the sheriffs.”

Sean shook his head, feeling as though all the wind had been knocked out of him. 

“No, sir, I was speaking to myself! It is a nervous habit of mine, you see, and I can’t imagine there is anything the sheriffs can do about a man’s ne—”

Before he could finish his sentence, the watchman had set his lantern down, and with his free hand, grabbed hold of a rope hidden in his pocket.

“Sir!” Sean cried, backing further into the alleyway, and knocking over his own lantern in the process. “Sir, please, you must have mercy!”

“There will be mercy if you are found innocent,” Drury explained, an edge to his voice as he gripped onto the baker’s forearm. 

“No, sir, please, you don’t understand!” Sean shouted, trying his best to pull away.

The watchman only tightened his grip, his free hand snaking the rope around Sean’s other arm, tying it with a merciless amount of force until rope enveloped every inch of the baker’s wrists.

At this his cheeks grew red, his heartbeat speeding up like a hare’s. 

Shame seemed to be branded upon the young man’s face as the two began their walk to the jailhouse—a hard trip made no easier by Drury’s rigid steering of the young man. 

He was ashamed for not having followed his mother’s advice, ashamed for not being able to come up with a good excuse for his behavior, ashamed for ever having been the Witches’ Son at all.

Although he had never been one of the spiritual types, he prayed to anyone who cared enough to listen that he would return to his mother’s house the next morning, only to find her safe and sound, having forgotten all about their argument that night.

Indeed, he took comfort in fantasy, even that of the more supernatural type, imagining as he moved what creatures may have lurked in the fog—wolves made of mist, the weeping ghosts of widows, and screeching banshees all seemed to appear in what dim light there was.

But most important of all his actions on the walk to the jailhouse, Sean continually and ritualistically looked up at the sky, searching, even if fruitlessly, for just a glimpse of the dove’s white feathers.

By the time he had stepped through the door into the jail, he had yet to see anything. 


	45. Gone With the Roses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Julian appears at Yoko’s doorstep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for 666 hits! I’ll see you guys at 911! (Or 999 if you live in the UK)

Turning the door handle, Kyoko was absolutely sure she would see Sean standing in the snow, a meek look on his face as he requested to speak to his mother, having thought long and hard about the previous night’s events.

It would do both of them well, she thought, to have a bit of closure on the whole affair.

Her mother, fortunately, thought the same thing, stepping down the stairs with a quick, mannered elegance as soon as he heard the knock on the wood.

As her daughter pulled open the door, she straightened her posture and pursed her lips, playing out a whole number of scenarios in her head as she debated how exactly she would word her sentences.

Imagine her disappointment when she saw Julian standing outside.

Kyoko, for once, was quite surprised, her eyebrows raising as her head drew back, a tuft of hair peeking out from underneath her cap.

“Julian,” she greeted, trying to recollect herself and adapt to the sight.

The longshoreman smiled, if only to be polite.

“Fair morrow,” he said, his eyes scanning the foyer, his head stopping dead in its tracks as they met his stepmother’s.

“And to you as well, Yoko,” he added hurriedly. 

The old woman sighed. 

“Is there something you need? Or have you come to apologize?”

Kyoko stepped aside, allowing the man entry into the foyer. He did not meet Yoko’s gaze as he untied his cloak and removed his hat, smoothing his hair from where the fabric had rested. 

“I apologize,” he mumbled. “For having exchanged some rather harsh words with you the other night, although I would like to make it perfectly clear that I still stand behind my point.”

Yoko shifted her weight upon the staircase. “You are forgiven.”

The clock ticked for a few moments in the charged stillness, until at last, with a considerate tilt of her head, Kyoko asked, “Will Sean be coming with you this morrow?”

Julian’s eyes bulged at the question, and, having hung his cloak and hat upon the proper receptacle, he wagged a pointed finger in the air as he said, “That… is exactly what I’ve come to talk about.”

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Yoko shook her head. 

“He didn’t honestly send you as a representative of his,” she began. “Did he?”

Kyoko pressed her hand to her chest. “Is he that upset?”

“Ah- nay,” Julian stammered. “Do come into the parlor, please. It would do you both some good, I feel, to sit down for this.”

At this both women’s eyes grew wide, and without any further hesitation, they did as they were told, Yoko choosing to sit in her chair by the hearth, and Kyoko and Julian taking seats on the sofa to its right.

“Now what is it?” the old woman asked, leaning forward. “Has he fallen ill?”

Julian stared at the rug. 

“Nay,” he sighed. “Not to my knowledge. Although… I suppose I would not—”

He took a deep breath in, dragging his hand from the bridge of his nose down to his chin, as though he had just woken up. 

“I digress,” he said, meeting his stepmother’s eyes. “Look— what I’ve come to tell you is that Sean never came back to his house last night.”

Yoko straightened her spine, her mouth slightly agape as cold, hard fear filled every inch of her being.

“He- he didn’t?”

The longshoreman shook his head. “Nay, not to my knowledge.”

“Did he leave a note?” Kyoko asked. “Perhaps what has happened is that he went before you arrived, and so left a message for you telling you s—”

“Nay,” Julian interrupted. “I found nothing.”

Yoko felt nauseous. 

“What about his wardrobe?” she asked frantically. “His bedchamber? Did it seem as though he had left for good?”

Her stepson sighed.

“I did check the wardrobe,” he said. “And all his clothes were still there, as far as I could tell. All of his things seemed to be in the same place as well. There were still jars in the cupboard, paper on the desk…”

Kyoko covered her mouth with her hand.

Her mother simply shook her head back and forth, as though she did not believe what she was hearing.

“I… I don’t understand,” she said, her voice cracking. “Where do you think he could have gone?”

Julian swallowed. “What I’m worried about is that he’s gotten lost, what with all that fog last night… I would have stumbled into an Indian settlement myself, if the paths through the wood were not as clearly marked.”

Kyoko pursed her lips. “It’s certainly possible…”

“If he were in the woods, he would find his way home!” Yoko cried, now growing visibly upset. “There- there isn’t any way he could have strayed from the paths; he knows them better than anyone!”

“I understand that,” Julian said evenly, not wanting to argue with the woman. “But you must consider the conditions. Hell, you couldn’t see half a mile ahead of you!”

“No, no, no! He’s made it through worse before—”

“Mother,” Kyoko urged.

“Yes, there was a terrible blizzard back last February, and he had come to deliver bread to me!”

Julian opened his mouth to speak, but Kyoko placed a hand on his chest. 

“Honestly,” Yoko continued. “There must have been a foot and a half of snow, and he had still managed to find his way to and fro! If he can get through that, then he can get through a couple of inches of fog!”

The longshoreman shook his head. “Yoko, it wasn’t just a  _ couple of inches _ .”

“Still!”

“Well, then,” Julian tossed his hands in the air. “What do you think happened?”

The old woman’s breathing picked up, her tone near hysterical as she began, “My God, he’s hurt! He must be!”   
“Oh, Mother, I’m sure that isn’t the case…”

“Nay! Nay, you do not understand, he’s been hurt!” Yoko placed a hand on her beet-red cheek, her voice only raising as she cried, “He could have been killed, even!”

“That’s very unlikely,” Julian argued. “Listen, Kyoko is right—there’s no way that’s the case.”

“And how would you know?” the old woman snapped. “Do you have any idea what the people in this town are like? They would have his head if he so much as whistled out of key!”

“With all due respect—” 

“Kyoko, don’t you remember those days while we were under investigation?”

The woman flinched, surprised she had been brought in for testimony. 

“Don’t you remember what that was like?” Yoko asked, her voice somehow having raised an octave. 

Kyoko drew back. “Well, to a certain extent, I suppose…”

“And what about John? Do you recall that evening in the fall when he had been attacked by Tailor Mayhew’s brother? Don’t you remember what they did to him?”

“I-”

Julian pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yoko, we can’t assume the worst has happened. It doesn’t get us anywhere to assume he’s already been murdered.”

“You can tell that to your father!” the woman raged, moving towards the foyer. “Now if it isn’t any trouble to you, I’m going to look for my son!”

The longshoreman sat with his elbows on his knees, absolutely dumbfounded. 

“When will you be back?” Kyoko called. “Should I-”

“I’ll be back whenever I find Sean!”

“Before supper?”

“Listen,” the woman urged. “At the very latest, I’ll be back by sundown. Now, tell Sir Harrison where I’ve gone, and be sure to prepare lunch for everyone!”

With a loud crash and a blast of cold wind, the door slammed shut. 

Julian sat upon the sofa for a good long minute, no muscle in his body moving but his eyelids, blinking rapidly over his wide eyes.

Kyoko frowned, a palpable melancholy stretched over her complexion, and with sigh, turned to her stepbrother.

Julian turned to her as well.

And then, inexplicably, the two began to laugh. 

There was nothing particularly humorous about the whole thing—in fact it was rather tragic—but somehow, perhaps out of mind-numbing stress and disbelief, there the stepsiblings sat, their eyes wide and their minds muddled as they giggled.

“My God,” Julian cried. “The world is going mad!”

“Is it the world,” Kyoko countered. “Or is it only us?”

The longshoreman leaned back, a deep breath passing over his lips as he said, “Oh, well, Yoko’s always been mad. Not that-” He sprang up, extending his hand slightly to Kyoko. “Not to imply any offense, of course!”

“Oh, no,” the woman laughed. “You’re quite right, if I do say so. Very much so, in fact.”

Julian nodded with a low, short hum and sat back, suddenly finding that he was no longer comfortable in the position he had settled in.

He tried briefly to alter it, so as to find a proper and natural place to rest his arms and legs, but quickly came to realize how idiotic he must have been coming across to Kyoko.

His movements were unmannered and awkward, his demeanor overall anxious, which, to be fair, was annoyingly accurate to his general state of mind.

Eventually, he just decided to sit low on the cushions, his shoulders spread and his arms behind the wood of the sofa as he rested the ankle of his right leg upon the knee of his left.

He felt like a dunce doing it, but by that point, he supposed there was nothing else he could do.

Contrary to what he believed, however, Kyoko couldn’t have cared less how he sat.

Her expression had sobered up, her brow becoming furrowed and her forehead wrinkled as she murmured, “Sean truly has vanished, hasn’t he?”

The longshoreman hesitated answering the question, understanding that such words coming from such a woman may have evoked a certain kind of disturbance between the two.

“He has,” he sighed. “From the looks of it, anyway.”

Kyoko pursed her lips.

“Although- I find it rather difficult to believe he’s in any immediate danger. As I said before, what is far more likely is that he had lost his way in the fog yesternight and is now on his way home. I simply can’t imagine anything else.”

His stepsister turned to him, a pensive look in her eyes as she gently tilted her head, her mouth still curled into a frown. 

“What?” Julian asked, suddenly becoming aware of what he perceived to be disappointment in him. “I-I apologize, have I done something?”

“Oh, no,” the woman sighed. “You’ve done nothing, it’s just that…”

The longshoreman frowned.

“You seem to have a rather…  _ optimistic  _ perspective on this town, don’t you?”

“Oh,” he mumbled. “I don’t know if I would say that.”

“At least on its residents.”

Julian squinted, a bit confused by the whole thing.

“Well, sure,” he said. “I’ve never met any of them, after all.”

Kyoko nodded. “Certainly! Although…” she hesitated. “When it comes to matters of witchcraft, and the accusations on our family of such practices, I cannot help but take notice of your brand of, shall we say, blind optimism. The likes of which, I must admit, I can understand.”

Julian tilted his head.

“You were never here,” the woman continued. “When that all was occurring. Nay,” She shook her head. “You were hardly here at all, at any point, really.”   
“I don’t understand where you’re going with this.”

Kyoko met his gaze and offered a weak smile.

“My apologies, then,” she said. “I suppose all I mean to say is that I believe, on the basis of personal testimony, that your assumptions about the people of this town, and in particular, how they view my mother—and thus in extension, Sean—are far too generous in assigning the nature of their intentions to be good and virtuous.”

“Well, I can’t believe they’re all horrible people who go around stomping on baby rabbits.” Julian argued.

“Of course not,” the woman agreed. “But you must understand—in their minds, John and my mother were never proven innocent.”

The longshoreman pursed his lips.

“And considering the extremes to which they’ve taken their fear in the past,” she brooded, her eyes wandering unmistakably towards the bearded figure in the painting at the end of the harpsichord. “It’s as likely that someone has attacked Sean, or  _ worse _ , heaven forbid, as it is that he became lost in the fog the other night.” 

Julian parted his lips, unable to squeak out a sound, and raised his eyebrows.

“I know you may be unwilling to accept it,” Kyoko concluded. “But my mother’s fears are legitimate.”

“Well,” the longshoreman began, pressure pounding in his head. “It’s not necessarily that I’m unwilling to accept it, it’s just that… I’d rather not imagine my brother is dead in a ditch somewhere with a knife in his back.”

Kyoko nodded respectfully, deciding without hesitation not to highlight the irony in the man’s statement.

“Of course,” she whispered. 

Julian leaned back. “But I understand. You make a very good point, there, you know.”

“Thank you.”

“Certainly,” the longshoreman said, nodding. “And of course, I can’t imagine Sean’s sudden leave of absence is made any easier for your mother considering…”   
He paused.

“Well, considering everything that had happened…”

Kyoko pursed her lips, waiting for the inevitable and unavoidable conclusion.

“Everything that happened between yourself, her, and your father—that’s what I mean.”

“You can say my disappearance, Julian. I’m not going to get mad at you if you do.”

The longshoreman drew back, his cheeks flushed. “Ah- of course. My apologies.”

The woman nodded, and Julian, in the meantime, pondered her sudden deviation from her typical character.

He had observed, in the time he had been in New York, that Kyoko was not at all fond of discussing what had happened to her once her father had taken her.

Julian would know, of course; he tried asking her (in a very nonthreatening manner) many times.

And many times—every time, in fact—she had refused to talk to him about it. 

It wasn’t that he was trying to pry information from her. It was simply that curiosity had gotten the best of him.

After so many years of assuming his stepsister was dead, he had never forgotten he had one.

It seemed as though every night, for those long thirty-or-so years, as he laid awake, unable to fall asleep, it was Kyoko who protruded into his thoughts.

He saw her face in the shadows, a shy smile on spread on her chin as she stood clutching her doll, her skirt blowing in the wind, just the same as it had on the ship, and he thought to himself: How horrible was it that he could not even picture the sound of her voice? 

The girl who had been his very first friend, and for quite some time, the only one, who had treated him with so much kindness, only occasionally stepping on his feet, had up and vanished.

It was so cruel, he thought. But it had taught him a very valuable lesson, one that he would carry with him for his entire life—never allow yourself to get too attached to someone, for when they leave you, it’ll be at your expense. 

It will be your heart that’s torn in half.

Indeed, Kyoko’s disappearance had had a profound effect on him growing up. As his mother said once, it was as though he lost a bit of his soul once that letter from his father arrived, telling him, as plainly as ink on paper, that his only friend was likely dead. 

Reuniting with her earlier that year, then, had been a strange experience.

On one hand, of course, Julian had been ecstatic. After so many years, it seemed as though the hope in the very bottom of his heart had prevailed, and through what could only be described as supernatural intervention, Kyoko had lived.

But it had also been very odd, not just for Julian, but for both of them.

It was as if they were staring into the eyes of a stranger, one who had grown and developed completely separate from the other, and who had strayed so far from that childish memory they had of the other that they now resembled their old friend in name only.

Much to Julian’s dismay, of course.

When they finally met, it had all felt so forced. It was awkward, but it wasn’t supposed to be. 

What was supposed to be was a joyous occasion on which the stepsiblings would speak long into the night, recounting stories from their past that the other had never before heard, describing the newfound challenges they faced in their adult life, and above all else, reclaiming the bond they had created when they were but children, had turned into a deeply uncomfortable situation for everyone involved.

The two had sat down for supper with Sean and Yoko and had hardly said anything of substance.

And they had done so on every other occasion their paths had crossed, talking about the woman’s husband and children, the weather, and, with the advent of all the bedlam, the bird.

Every time Julian had tried to ask her about those twenty-seven years she had ceased to exist, if only to fill in the gap in his memory, he had been shut down.

And every time she had tried to ask him about John, apart from a single instance in which she briefly mentioned his death, he had shut her down, answering in the vaguest sense possible and claiming that the man had never written to him much.

It would seem almost impossible, then, for the two to ever reclaim what closeness they had had as children, when they still saw the world in terms of optimism. 

That, Julian thought, was unacceptable.

He had to try one more time.

It might just work, he reasoned, considering Kyoko herself had referenced her disappearance.

After a long sigh, he began in a quiet tone, “Do you ever think of it?”

Kyoko placed her hands on her knees and turned to her stepbrother.

“Do I ever think of my disappearance, you mean?”

“Aye.”

She laughed. “Of course I do.”

“And what do you think about it, exactly?”

Her brow furrowed. “Well, I certainly wish it hadn’t happened, but I wonder… where would I be if it didn’t?”

She leaned back on the sofa, her eyes fixed on the doll at the top of the mantle. “I suppose I would have simply stayed here, wouldn’t I? I would have stayed and gone to trial with John and my mother, I could have watched Sean grow up, and I could have attended John’s funeral.”

She breathed deep, adding at the end, “But then I would not have gotten to see my father again.”

Julian nodded, racking his brain for an appropriate response to the woman’s sorrows, but was then interrupted by Kyoko’s further rambling, her tone growing sharper as she continued, “So which is it? Which outcome would I truly have wanted, if I were one to choose? Would I rather have gone with my father and become prejudiced against my mother, or stayed with my mother and lost my father? You must understand, Julian, it’s a game with no victor.”

“That… that couldn’t have been easy,” the longshoreman sighed. “But, you know, I know what you mean.”

“Do you?” Kyoko sighed.

The man drew back, his cheeks flushing under such scrutiny.

“Well… perhaps I don’t, then…”

A genuine smile peeked through his stepsister’s facade of solemnity. 

“Oh, I know not what I speak of,” she grieved. “There is no sense in pretending I would have had any choice in the matter.”

Julian frowned. “Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t entitled to wish things had gone differently.”  
  
“But what good does that do me?” Kyoko asked, turning to him. “What good would it do anyone to wish Rome never fell?”

For a moment, the longshoreman was quiet, his mind searching for a counterargument. And then, with a softly furrowed brow, he answered, “It might not change anything, true. But you still have power over how you think of your mother and father. No one else can tell you that.”  
  
Kyoko sighed.

“Not to mention,” Julian added. “I used to wish you were still alive, so… sometimes, I suppose, in very rare instances, wishing might just work.” 

The woman’s face fell as swift and as grave as petals being torn from a rose in a storm.

“You, too, thought I had died?”

Julian shrugged. “It certainly seemed that way to me. John and Yoko were fairly certain your father had taken you, but I suppose I never believed it.”

“What did you believe, then? Did you think they had killed me?”

“Oh, no!” the longshoreman assured. “No, not at all! I had merely thought you’d gotten lost. Eaten by sirens, maybe, nothing all that sinister!”

He shuddered at the resemblance to his assumptions regarding Sean.

“I don’t think I ever rationalized any of it, really. You just left, and you were never coming back, and that was that.”

Kyoko smiled. “For once, then, be glad you were wrong.”

“I am.”

He gazed into the fire, watching as the flames rolled and hissed into each other, insatiable in their burning.

In that moment of calm, where the two simply delighted in the fact that they were both still alive, it seemed as though the time may have been right to ask the question Julian had been asking himself every day since he had set foot in New York.

His voice lowered as he whispered, “Where did you ever go?”

Kyoko’s face fell, and after a pregnant pause, she responded, “What do you mean?”

Julian rested his elbows on his knees, his back hunched forward, his eyes still transfixed on the flames. “Your father,” he said. “Where did he take you?”

“Many places,” the woman sighed, staring up at her doll.

“But where exactly?”

“Hartford,” she answered. “Then to Boston, Perth Amboy, New Castle… eventually we just found ourselves in Philadelphia.”

“Alright,” Julian mumbled. “But… where did you spend the most time?”

“New Jersey,” the woman said confidently. “We were there for all of six years.”

“In what city?” 

Kyoko shook her head. “It wasn’t so much of a city, I believe, as it was a town.”

Julian met her eye. “A large town or a small town?”

“It was a very small town, as I recall. There was only a handful of people… and all they ever did was go to church.”

“Nothing else?” the longshoreman laughed.

“Nothing else.”

“Well, then, it sounds like the opposite of Liverpool,” Julian jeered. “I’d imagine it’d make the people there very boring, though.”

Kyoko took a deep breath in. 

“Not at all,” she murmured. “They were a very paranoid folk, you see. The kind that grab you by the shoulders in the middle of the day and warn you to beware of the demons hiding in the flames of candles. And they had a deathly fear of witches… 

“Not even to mention the preacher! You must understand, there wasn’t any real sort of government, not even so much as a mayor, and so the townspeople all just followed him. I thought he was horribly vain and misleading, although, I suppose that was only after I’d left. But they followed this man in whatever he said, no matter how absurd or improbable. I felt as though I was living in a world entirely separate from that which contains any reasonable knowledge.” 

A mad grin appeared on the longshoreman’s face, pleased to be making strides in his conversation with the woman. 

Until he saw her scowl.

“Are… are you alright?” he asked quietly.

“I suppose so,” Kyoko said, crossing her arms. “I just prefer not to recollect on that place.”

“Oh, I—”

“For the six years we stayed there, you would have thought we’d have learned something.”

She laughed, exacerbated.

“Nay, I learned plenty! I learned more than enough, I truly did, but I learned everything all wrong.”

Julian drew back.

“I learned how to pray for the death of my mother,” Kyoko continued, seemingly unaware of the effect her words were having on Julian, who was growing more and more disturbed with the idea of the town. “And how to believe everything without ever questioning it. What truly bothers me is that  _ that  _ was where we stayed for those six years,” she sighed. “Out of all places… Heavens, that was where I grew into a woman!”

Julian sat back, his head tilted. 

His brain searched for what to say to such emotion, but came up empty-handed each time. 

He had never been very good at emotional things, after all.

“I apologize,” he said at last. “That… that doesn’t sound the least bit enjoyable.”

“Oh,” Kyoko said, shaking her head. “It wasn’t all bad. The nice thing about having such a small population, after all, is that everyone was very close. I made many friends, really. Although I suppose the structure of the whole thing did spoil the experience…”

“I can imagine,” Julian mumbled.

“It’s awfully nice to be back,” the woman confessed. “I think that of all the places I missed while I was away, it was this parlor that I missed the most.”

“Truly?” Julian asked, incredulous.

“Truly,” she nodded, standing up and moving towards the end of the room. “In the summertime, you know, the sunlight used to stream through this window…”

Kyoko pressed her fingers to the glass.

“You used to be able to open it,” she sighed, fondly remembering the experience. “And the breeze would come in and blow the curtains. Oh, and then you would be able to smell the roses…”

She rested her body on the wall, her head pressed against it as she stared into the empty rosebox.

“It was wonderful,” she whispered.

Julian pressed his back to the wall, having followed her over to the window.

“It sounds like it,” he said, a bit resentful he had never seen it.

“I wish they were still here… it truly is such a shame my mother got rid of them.”

“Sean said they reminded her too much of John,” Julian admitted. “So she threw them out. Which I suppose I can understand… she was inconsolable, from what I’ve heard.”

“Right,” Kyoko said, wistful. “It’s just too bad that his death ruined her appreciation for the roses.”

The clock struck ten, and the woman drew her attention to the street, visible from the corner of the glass.

“Do you think Sean remembers them at all?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” Julian sighed. “I have a memory of him reaching for them on one of my visits here, although…”

He frowned.

“He was so young at the time. I’m not sure if he can even remember back that far.”

“A shame,” Kyoko said, shaking her head.

“I suppose so.”

The woman met her stepbrother’s gaze, her eyes woeful and worried.

“I do hope he’s alright,” she whispered. “I’m not sure what I’ll do if he’s not. Not to mention my mother.”

Julian crossed his arms.

“I think she’d lose her mind,” he said. “In fact, I know she would. After losing John, as well… it wouldn’t be pretty.”

“Certainly not. It’s just that… I don’t want to lose him after I’ve barely gotten to know him.” 

Julian swallowed the lump in his throat.

“You don’t think you know him very well?”

“I don’t know him at all,” Kyoko lamented. “Certainly not the way you do, anyway. He never writes to me, that’s what it is. And I never write to him, either.”

She shook her head. 

“Of course, I cannot blame him. I don’t believe my mother had ever spoken of me before I returned. Oh, it mustn’t have been easy for him, just to visit our mother one day and discover that he had a half-sister he had never even known about.”

Julian smiled a bit, if only pitifully.

“What was that like?” he asked.

Kyoko pressed a hand to her breast. “My word, it was so awful! I had thought him to be John upon first sight of him… See, I had not known at the time that he was dead… and then to realize he was his son! Oh, be glad you weren’t there…”

“The shame is palpable,” The longshoreman mused.

“Without a doubt...” 

Kyoko laughed painfully at her recollection of the situation, comforted, if you will, by her ability to do so, as at the time it had all taken place, it felt as though she would never live it down. 

But her laugh was bittersweet, as the reality of the current setting quickly returned to her, and she remembered her mother was out in the snow searching for Sean, who for all she knew had been beaten and robbed in an alleyway, blood trickling down his face as he froze to death. 

With a cautious air about her, she stepped towards Julian and threw her arms around him.

It was by Sean’s invitation that she had come to New York.

And she had not come for his funeral.


	46. Let This Be My Statement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sean is placed temporarily in a cell for madmen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good things come in small packages.

Sitting himself down on the cold stone floor, Sean let out a sigh.

After a whole night and morning of interrogation and deliberation, the constables hadn’t yet come up with a suitable fate for the young man.

Admittedly, the odds were better than he had expected—of the four men first assigned to determine the validity of Drury’s accusation, two had expressed a disbelief in witchcraft altogether, whereas the others had held steadfast that the man was, beyond the shadow of a doubt, a warlock.

They had quarreled for a bit about such things for quite a while, until eventually they ruled that they had to drag another unwilling soul into the case, that of another night watchman around the area.

He had stated, very firmly so, that he felt accusations of witchcraft were nothing more than a tool for political gain, an activity practiced by those whose lives are so dull that they must invade on those of others. 

Which, naturally, had led to a heated debate about the validity of the folklore that surrounded the Lennons, a discussion which Sean took some comfort in listening to, considering how outrageous some claims about his bloodline were. 

However, the argument, as many do, led nowhere, and so a fiery-haired man by the name of Lockhart had demanded the presence of the eldest constable in the jail that night, that being Mister Tobias Overfelt, who had allegedly questioned the witches Lennon before their first trial in 1712.

So Overfelt was brought in, immediately ruling that Sean was in fact a warlock, and should have been taken to trial immediately, along with his mother, if only to bring the townspeople some peace of mind.

Of course, his decision caused an uproar in the room, with the three more rational constables arguing that he was incredibly biased, and they were straying too far from the original question—what should happen to the young man?   
Should he be ruled mad, or sent before the magistrate on trial?

If he  _ were  _ ruled mad, then, what should his punishment be? Lashes? The pillory? A short sentence in the jail?   
All six of the men agreed to allow the baker’s apprentice (and themselves, more importantly) some sleep, as the county sheriff would be in the jail the next day, and he would surely sort the matter out. 

Much to no one’s surprise, Sean had barely slept, too preoccupied with thoughts of trials, death, persuasion of innocence, the bird, and his family and friends.

Just when he had fallen asleep, however, he was taken to see the sheriff, a man by the name of Jacobus Ryder, who had thankfully not been alive for the trial of John Lennon and his wife.

He was a godsend to Sean, having confidently declared, after much deliberation, that while the man was certainly mad, speaking to doves in an alleyway for enjoyment, the voice Drury had heard speaking back to him was nothing more than a trick of the mind, or perhaps a voice the young man had done in his incapable state of mind. 

Thus, the sheriff ruled, Sean Lennon was not a witch, but he  _ was  _ a madman, and deserved to be treated as such under the law.

Which led to yet another argument about how exactly he should have been punished. (Those who had believed him to be a witch were in favor of a harsher punishment, whereas those who believed him to be mad were in favor of a less severe course of action.)

After an hour of deliberation, this had led to Sean being tossed in a cell for madmen, a temporary holding place that would serve him for as long as it took a conclusion to be reached.

He wasn’t sure what exactly he was supposed to do until then.

So he simply looked around.

All the walls around him, along with the floor, were made of stone, cold and hard, and reeking of everything from urine to blood to sweat to tears.

At the top of the wall to Sean’s right sat a single barred opening, its light streaming in and just barely illuminating the figures in the room, of which there were two others.

The young man tried his best not to make his presence known to them—he  _ was  _ in a cell for madmen, after all—but nevertheless, he was able to catch a glimpse of their general appearances.

The first was huddled in the corner betwixt the windowed wall and the one Sean sat along, a slave boy, it seemed, with scars on his face, a red cap upon his head, and no shoes on his feet.

There he slept (how, the baker had no idea) his neck strained to the right so that his head rested upon his shoulder.

The young man only feared what would happen when he awoke.

Fortunately, the other man in the room took care of that.

He sat by his lonesome at the wall opposite Sean, a flicker of fear in his eyes and a familiar deadset determination in his grimace.

He was a stout man, about the same build as that red-headed constable from that morrow, with a round face and wide nose, the likes of which was ultimately overshadowed in its size by the rest of the man’s head.

As Sean studied his face, catching glimpses of it every now and then so as not to disturb or otherwise aggravate the man, he noticed something very strange and deeply unsettling.

No matter where in the room the baker was looking, from the floor to the ceiling to the window, the other man’s eyes never moved.

They always stared at the same point in the room, focused on a singular object—that of Sean’s face.

As the young man realized this, he flushed, a rush of adrenaline making its way to his brain.

It could have been, he thought, that the man was simply observing him, sizing him up in the same way Sean had done to him, so as to understand who exactly was in the room with him.

But that was assuming his intentions were kindhearted, or at the very least, nonmalicious. 

Nay, what was more likely was that the man was watching him like a lion, stalking his prey for hours upon hours at a time, waiting for the perfect time to—

A voice interrupted his thought, soft and deep and stagnant, but loud enough to awaken the slave boy in the corner, who, upon opening his eyes, proceeded to mumble nonsense to himself, shriveling further and further into his section of the wall as he picked at his skin.

“Tell me what it is you are doing here,” the staring man deadpanned.

Sean drew back.

He supposed it would only make sense that the man recognized him as the Witches’ Son—his face was more than recognizable to the people of the town, after all—but he was not eager to stir any trouble with a madman.

Perhaps he could pretend he was deaf, he thought, or at the very least mute. He could pretend he hadn’t heard the man, act as though he only saw his lips moving in what little light there was, and perhaps he would believe it.

As Sean pondered his options, the man continued to stare at him.

“Why have you come here?” he demanded, his voice growing louder. “Why now?”

The baker pursed his lips. 

If the man was only going to grow angrier the more he ignored him, then it seemed he had no choice but to speak to him.

“I shan’t be here long,” he explained, timid. “In fact, I should be on my way very soon.”

The man’s eyes looked into his soul. “Just tell me what it is you’re here to do.”

The slave boy slowly turned his head to Sean, as if expecting him to answer the question.

The baker faltered before answering, “I’m here to wait.”  
  
“For  _ what _ ?” the madman hissed.

“For my fate.”

At this the man’s eyes grew small, his head turning slightly as though he were afraid.

Sean picked up on this, one of his knees slipping to the floor as he hurriedly began, “I won’t hurt you, I promise. I’ll only be here until I can leave.”

“Oh, don’t fool me,” the man scoffed, his eyes squinted. 

“Sir, I’m not trying to—”

“Just tell me what it is you want, and for the love of God, get on with it! I’d like to make this quick.”

Sean tilted his head.

“I want nothing, sir,” he said. “I-I only want to go home.”

The slave boy raised his eyebrows, careful not to meet either of the mens’ eyes as he observed their conversation.

“For the last time,” the man grimaced, “Don’t try and fool me...”

“Sir, I’m telling the tru—”

From the inside of his cloak, Sean saw the man retrieve what looked to be a small, black book, its cover dusty in the light.

He furrowed his brow.

“If I give this to you,” the man began, an audible fear in his voice. “Will you leave?”

Sean smiled nervously.

“Oh, that’s very kind of you, sir, but I’m afraid I can’t be sure when I’m going to leave.”

Without any warning, the book was flung across the room, traveling through time and space at an immense speed, garnering the attention of the young slave boy, who let out a loud cry.

Sean dodged it as best he could, relieved as its cover hit the stones behind him with a loud  _ whack _ . 

“What on Earth was that for?” he cried. 

“Take it!” the man responded, growing more antsy with every second. “Take it and leave me be!”

“With all due respect, sir, I cannot leave until the constables’ decision is made! Tossing this… whatever this is at me is not going to change that!”

The man drew back. “The constables? The constables sent you here?”

Sean wasn’t sure how to answer that. 

“You’re lying to me!”

“I assure you, sir, I am not. You can ask them yourself if you don’t believe me.”

“You—”

The man tilted his head away from Sean, his brow furrowed as his eyes betrayed a kind of manic fear.

“How did you—”

Sean used his foot to slide the book to the other side of the wall, a sigh escaping his lips as he said, “Please don’t throw things at people, sir.”

The man didn’t take his eyes off of him. 

“Who are they?” he murmured.

“Who are who?”

“The constables—who are they?”

Sean shrugged. “I’m not sure. Drury, Lockhart, Overfelt… Sheriff Ryder… I’m afraid I never asked all their names.”  
  
“How many were there?” the man asked, intrigued.

Sean thought for a moment.

“Seven,” he said decisively. “There were seven in total.”

“Seven?”

“Seven,” Sean confirmed. “That’s right.”

For a long time, the man studied his face, observing as the light from the window bounced off of it.

Sean simply drew his gaze to the ground.

“So you are lying to me,” the man said after a while. “You are a two-tongued spirit.”

Sean couldn’t help the grin that arose on his face, a sort of awkward reaction to the man’s nonsense.

“If you so say, sir, then I suppose I am.” 

He almost thought it was a poorly constructed plan to indulge the man in his delusion, but by that point, Sean wasn’t sure how else to reason with him.

Besides, the man seemed to be alright with it.

For the first time since Sean had arrived in the cell, he had taken his eyes off of him, directing them instead to the stones on the floor.

Which meant it was Sean’s turn to watch.

And watch he did, noting how the man’s eyebrows raised sporadically, his lips pursing back and forth until he finally met the baker’s eyes again.

“I know why you’re here, then,” he murmured. 

“And why is that?”

“You’re here to take what’s yours to take.” the man answered plainly. “So wait no more, I pray you, and take it. I’ll not fight it.” 

Sean rested an arm on his knee. 

“I’m not sure what it is I’m supposed to take, sir.” he said.

With a strange sort of scratching sound, the untitled black book slid across the stones to the baker. 

“Start with this, then,” the man sighed. “Finish this whole cursed scheme, and take this with you back to Hell, so as to accomplish what it is that must be accomplished.” 

“To Hell?” Sean whispered. “You aren’t going to—”

The man blinked. 

“I’ll do nothing I haven’t yet done. Now, for the love of God, reclaim what is yours.”

Sean frowned, pulling his knees back to his chest and becoming increasingly aware of the limited space surrounding him.

If he were to be attacked in that cell, he thought, then there would be no one to pry the man off of him.

There would be no one that would care if he lived or died.

Fortunately for him, however, the man didn’t move.

He didn’t so much as flinch as he spoke, “If you would be so kind, however, then I must ask one last thing of you before you do so.”  
  
“I’m not going anyw—”

“Add to what was written on the final page of that book,” he said, pulling a second book from out of his cloak. “Write the following—”

In the time it took the man to find the proper section of his book, which Sean could now see was the Bible, the baker turned to the last page of that untitled cover he held in his hands.

_ Let  _ _ this _ _ be my statement, _ it read in neat cursive,  _ For the great day of wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand? _

Signed, underneath, in scrawling penmanship, was the simple allusion  _ I, John _ .

“Ah, yes,” the man said, interrupting Sean’s reading. “Add this, please, upon that final page... ‘He had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead.’”

Sean frowned.

“I’m afraid I’ve no plume with which to write, sir,” he said apologetically. “But I can add it, if you like, once I return home. I’ll just need to know which verse it is.” 

The man shook his head. “You’ll know once you arrive. Now, at last—take what is yours to take.”

Sean was about to protest, claiming that he knew not what it was he was supposed to take, when a stream of light from the door interrupted him.

“Mister Lennon,” the sheriff’s voice called. “Please come forward.”

He stood up at once, the black book in his hand, a rush of fear overwhelming his senses.

Before leaving the room, as the door was about to close behind him, he turned around to catch one last glimpse of the man he had seen.

Unsurprisingly, he watched him as he left, his muscles unflinching, his pupils uncaring.

With a nod from him, the door shut, and Sean thought, now seeing him in the light, that the man seemed awfully familiar.

He wondered half-heartedly who he was.

“What have you decided?” he asked the sheriff weakly, preparing himself for whatever fate would soon befall him.

“Three hours in the pillory for madness,” the sheriff replied. “I’ve no doubt the people of this town shall reprimand you beyond what is necessary.”

Feeling the weight of the book in his jacket pocket, Sean took a deep breath in.

It was going to be a long day, he thought.

But at least he would make it out alive.    
  



	47. The Both of Ye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sean endures the pillory.

By the time the vision began, Sean could not have been more thankful to escape the scene in front of him.

He had, understandably so, grown very uncomfortable in his position, holding his head and hands out in front of him as the passersby sneered.

Sheriff Ryder had been correct in saying the townspeople would do much worse than he ever could—in the past hour alone, Sean had heard everything from insults to his family name to claims he was, in a completely literal sense, the devil incarnate. 

He had had snow thrown at him, along with rotting onions and potatoes, a whole and unscaled cod, two dead squirrels tragically undeserving of their fate, and an unfortunate number of stones.

His hat had been stolen by some opportunistic beggar, much to the amusement of the crowd that had gathered for the spectacle, and most terribly of all, Mister Hocke had come to watch.

Sean met his gaze only once, but he knew from the look on his face that the man was not pleased with him.

He could only imagine what awaited him when he returned for work the next morning.

To top it all off, however, as a ribbon does a gift, the temperature had dropped significantly since Sean arrived, the periwinkle clouds signifying that a harsh storm was brewing.

He was cold.

He was miserable.

He couldn’t get the smell of cod out of his nostrils.

Luckily for him, divine intervention was on its way.

As a stone pummeled his right cheek, sending a blistering pain through that same side of his mouth, the vision began.

To those in the crowd, it seemed as though he was in the midst of some kind of fever-dream, his eyes glazing over, staring at nothing as his mouth held itself open in a perpetual gape.

But rest assured, he was well and healthy—and, for some reason, staring at the street in front of his mother’s house.

Having barely slept the night before (he had grown quite fond of living with someone else, after all) and having spent the afternoon searching fruitlessly for Sean, Julian settled down on the sofa, taking only fifteen minutes to fall asleep. 

Now, as anyone that had spent enough time around the longshoreman would tell you, he was, most nights, a very light sleeper, one awakened from that holy pastime that is slumber by anything from the squeak of a mouse to the creak of a door.

It had been that way ever since he was a boy, and it would be that way until the day he died.

Of course, there  _ were  _ some rare instances in which he would enter a very deep sleep, often when he had fallen ill or stayed awake for far too long.

They were few and far between, but because of their peculiarity, they were noteworthy—the sort of thing that happens, and then is thought about all through the day, and, ironically, through some of the night.

Still, not one of these instances could have been more noteworthy than that which occurred on the twentieth of December, 1740, that afternoon he had fallen fast asleep in his stepmother’s parlor.

It was not only the soundness with which Julian slept, however, that made it so special.

What was leagues more interesting was the dream he had, which began with him standing in front of his stepmother’s house, staring intently at the street. 

Against the backdrop of those gleaming stars above him, marred on the sides by translucent trees and buildings, Stuart stood still, his mind empty.

The light in the room above him had long since been extinguished, the door behind him having long since been touched.

There were no minutes or hours in his world. There was no way to measure the passing of time but with doors and windows.

There were no thoughts in his head, no words he could think to speak. There was only that sense of dread, spread over his stretch of stone as a veil upon a maid’s head.

How things had changed, he mused to himself.

Where once there was tranquility, there was now foreboding.

Where once there was light, there was now darkness.

Where once men stood to speak about life and purpose, a ghost compared the past and present.

He sighed, his mind preoccupied with images of men riding massive birds, boys finding golden keys in the snow, strawberries fighting roses on a wall…

And then the door opened, and he caught a glimpse of green fabric out of the corner of his eye.

His eyebrows raised high on his forehead as he turned his head slowly, a dull anticipation rising in his hollow chest.

John’s eyes met his, bewildered and uncoordinated, his pupils small and his eyelids blinking rapidly.

But there was something off about the man, something that signaled he was not truly who he seemed to be.

It was just as Stuart thought.

“Good evening,” he said dryly, his eyes wandering over the imposter’s body.

Instead of drawing back, surprised, John simply leaned forward, his head tilting in confusion.

“Good evening,” he murmured, unsure whether or not he could say anything else.

“It is very nice to speak to you,” the Scotsman sighed, leaning back on his heels. “Both of ye.”

John smiled nervously, a staggered sort of laugh forcing its way out of his throat.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

Stuart nodded. “You are quite welcome. I have been meaning to do so for an awfully long time now.”

“Pardon me,” the impostor interrupted, “But—who are you exactly?”

“I am merely an observer.”

John furrowed his brow. “But do you have a name?”

“I had one.”

“But not anymore?”

“It is not one you would recognize.”

“Are you certain?” the man whispered, his eyes slowly focusing on Stuart’s face. “You seem so familiar…”

Stuart nodded. “There was a portrait of me drawn once; it now rests on the mantle above the hearth inside. Perhaps that is where ye have seen me?”

“Ah, yes,” John answered dully. “That’s it.”

“Indeed,” the Scotsman said. “Now, make haste, the both of ye, for we have not much time together.”

“Oh?”

“I pass onto you a message, one that serves greatly to your benefit.”

John straightened his spine. “Then tell me.”

“The both of ye,” Stuart began. “Ye are John Lennon’s sons, are you not?”

“Sons?” the man cried. “Plural?”

“Aye,” the ghost nodded.

John nearly jumped out of his skin, staring at his hands and turning all about as though he were a madman.

“Is Sean here?” he hollered. “Sean?  _ Sean _ ?”

Stuart couldn’t help but laugh at the sight.

“I—” John’s hands clenched. “I am! Or… I think I am… Where have you been? You’ve worried everyone nearly to death!”

“Gentlemen,” Stuart interrupted, collecting himself as he remembered the grave seriousness in which his message laid. “Please, we haven’t much time!”

The man turned to look at him, his eyes smoldering as though the flame inside them had had a bucket of water tossed on it.

“Forgive me,” he sighed, clearing his throat. “Just—say whatever it is you must say…”

“I thank you,” the Scotsman said. “Now, as for my message—it is of the utmost importance you heed my words.”

John straightened his spine.

“Twenty years ago,” Stuart began. “Your father and I both found ourselves on this street, standing where we stand now. We exchanged few words between ourselves, musing only for a moment on the former’s life and his regards thereof. 

“He left shortly thereafter, and died the next evening, shot upon the ground you now stand on.”

The impostor pursed his lips.

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked quietly.

Stuart sighed.

“I never left this place,” he explained. “Try as I might, I find I am unable to. And on that first night after your father’s death, I saw a large bird flying high through the sky, diving towards this ground we now behold.

“It stopped in front of my person watching me with contempt, and then, before my very eyes, it stepped inside the house.

“I did not follow it, and thus I could not see what it did, but upon its return, I could see that it carried your father’s body upon its back, its own body having doubled in size.”

John’s eyes widened.

“In the time since,” Stuart sighed, “That bird has returned. Not to this world, as I am certain ye are aware, but to yours, haunting yourselves and six others to the point of madness.”

“Y-you saw it?” the impostor stuttered. “You saw it here?”

The Scotsman nodded. “That I did.”

John drew back, his cheeks flushing in the cold. 

“What do you know about it?” he whispered.

“To be right and honest—I do not know very much. Still, I know one thing, a fact ye both must know should ye wish to banish that beast to wherever it is it came from.”

“And what is that?”

Drawing in a deep breath, Stuart reached out to touch the man’s hands. He was met with some resistance in this, John having flinched as the Scotsman’s cold hands pressed into his palms, but ultimately, he was able to touch both the men, staring deep into their eyes as he passed on that premonitory knowledge he had so painstakingly acquired.

“The both of ye,” he said, his jaw slightly lowering so as to better meet the mens’ eyes. “Are part of something so much larger than that which ye know.

“For many days I have watched you, and in doing so, I had begun to speculate on the thoughts of that bird that so haunts you. And seeing the two of ye here on this night, it seems my suspicions have been confirmed.”

He shook his head.

“Sean, Julian… there has been a terrible misunderstanding, the scale of which you cannot understand. That bird, in its foolishness, is unable to recognize reality. It sees not what truly is there, but rather what it believes  _ should  _ be there. 

“Should it come to see with clear eyes… I fear its wrath will be unmatched by any beast on or below the Earth.”

John frowned. “I don’t understand…”

Stuart shut his eyes, his eyebrows raising as he murmured, “Take a look at yourself, will you?” 

Julian, able to see from his left eye only, gazed downward at his hands only to find they did not belong to him.

Sean, seeing from his right eye, paid more attention to the clothes on his body.

His britches were clean, his stockings a much cleaner white than his own. Upon his back, concealing a heavy green waistcoat, he wore a decorative jacket of that same color, embroidered at the edges with roses and laurels, and fashioned with thick, gleaming brass buttons.

It was precisely what his father had worn when he had laid bleeding on the parlor floor.

Stuart knew immediately when the realization dawned on the men, their eyes growing small and their face flushing.

“No,” John gasped. “No, God, this can’t be—”

“But it is,” the Scotsman sighed.

“I- I am  _ not _ —”

“Make of this what ye will, gentlemen, and heed my advice.”

His eyes returned to the stars above him.

“I wish you both the best of luck.”

  
  
When Sean had finally snapped out of his vision, he found himself standing upright on the street, his fingers trembling and an arm interlocked with his own.

“Where—” he stammered.

Holding a lantern out in front of her, the woman holding his arm hushed him.

“All is well,” she assured, her voice rich and even-keeled. “Now keep still, we shall arrive soon.”  
  
“Where are we going?” he croaked.

“I am taking you back to your mother’s house.”

Sean blinked, taking a minute to comprehend the information.

“Does she still live by the forest?” the woman asked as an afterthought. “Out in front of the woods?”

“Aye,” the young man muttered. “That’s right.”

“Then we are only a short while away…”

Sean leaned towards the woman, trying his best to catch a glimpse of her face, shielded by a thick brown hood. 

She felt his eyes watching her, and turned to him for a moment, so as to deter him from staring any further.

With this the young man was able to make out some of her features—a round face with high cheekbones and full cheeks, a wide, dull nose, and eyes shaped like two crescent moons. 

“Who are you?” he whispered.

“A friend of your mother’s,” the woman answered with a sigh. “Now take care not to strain your voice; I don’t need you to fall any more ill.”

“Oh, I’m not ill at all, madam.”

“You keep believing that…” she sighed, turning the corner onto the street Sean had seen in his vision.

His eyes grew wide at the sight, his head lifting higher in the air.

There, only a hundred paces from where he stood, was where he had seen that man.

There, only seventy-five paces from where he stood, was where he had been warned that he knew not of his own importance.

There, only fifty paces from where he stood, was where he was where the Scotsman had grabbed hold of his hands.

There, only twenty-five paces from where he stood, was where he had looked down to see himself, and had instead seen his father.

There, on that ground upon which he stood, was where his father had been shot.

A chill ran up his spine as the thought entered his mind, his feet shuffling nervously over the cobblestone.

With a deep breath, the woman pressed her fist against the wood of the door.

Sean counted thirty-four seconds before it opened, nearly overwhelmed with emotion as he heard the familiar sound of his mother’s voice inside, assuring the others in the company that she would only be a moment.

With a creak and a gasp, Sean saw Yoko’s face for the first time in almost twenty-four hours.

Her jaw dropped to the floor, tears welling in her eyes as her eyebrows reached the sun.

“Sean,” she cried, her voice barely audible. “And…”

The woman next to the baker pursed her lips.

From inside of the dining room, Sean heard Julian’s voice, speaking as quickly as a hare, call out, “Sean?”

Yoko turned around, surprised by the unhinged speed of the longshoreman and flinched, drawing back to make room for the man in the doorway.

As his eyes met the woman’s, he paused, his brow furrowing and his eyes searching her face, as though she were a long-lost friend.

After a moment, it clicked.

“Madam Pang?” he asked incredulously.

The woman curtsied. “Good evening, Julian.”

Yoko blinked rapidly, still unable to believe the sight in front of her.

“Good evening, Julian,” Sean repeated, a tired look on his face. “Good evening, Mother.”

He craned his neck then to see the rest of the foyer, and then quickly followed up with, “And good evening Kyoko, Sir Harrison, and Ringo.”  
  
The cecaelia gave a stunned wave.

“Did you—” Yoko began, her face flushed at the sight of the woman. 

She shook her head. “Nevermind that… step inside, why don’t you? This cold cannot be good for either of you.”

May let a faint smile fall across her face. “That’s very kind of you, Yoko, although—”

“Nay,” the widow protested. “You will come in.”

With a sigh, the woman did as she was told.

Sean was immediately whisked away into the dining room, a clamor of voices asking him such lovely and varied questions such as: 

“Where have you been?”

“Have you eaten?”

“You aren’t cold, are you?”

“Are you alright? Are you ill?”

And the baker’s personal favorite, a strangely suspicious line from the young Sir Harrison—

“Why do you smell of fish?”

He simply sat down at his usual seat next to Julian and sighed, chuckling at the latter inquiry as he grabbed a baked onion, keen to believe that nothing had ever happened at all, and that he was still at that supper he had run away from the night before.

His mother led May in behind him, offering her chair to the woman upon finding there was no space for her at the table, but was ultimately rejected in this premise by the humble woman, professing that she would prefer to stand, as she did not intend to stay very long.

“Did you bring him home?” the widow asked in awe.

May sighed. “I suppose I did.”

“Wh— well, thank you, first of all… My God, thank you.”

“You’re quite welcome,” the woman muttered.

“Now…” Yoko began, turning to her son. “Where in hell did you go?”

Sean took a bite of his onion, not bothering to use the fork that was never provided for him. 

“It’s quite a tale, actually,” he mumbled. “I went to jail.”

“What for?” Dhani asked, accusatory.

“That was quite a debate among the constables. But in the end it was madness.”

“They didn’t hurt you,” Yoko gasped. “Did they?”

“Of course they did,” the young man scoffed. “I can’t imagine they’d do anything else.”

“How?” the woman demanded.

“Pillory—three hours of it. But I was out in some kind of fever dream for the latter half of it.”

His eyes lit up then, and he turned to Julian, adding, “You were in it, actually. Were you really there?”

The longshoreman let out a sigh. “I was.”

“I thought so.”

“And you brought him home, then?” Yoko asked, her gaze locked on May. “From the pillory?”

“That I did,” the woman said. “I couldn’t leave him there on his own—he seemed as though he was about to faint.”

The widow leaned back in her chair. “May, I cannot thank you enough. Truly, I know not how to repay you.”

“Oh, you’ve no need to do that…”

“Are you a fool?” George cried. “You saved Sean's life!” 

“And I will take my payment in his health.”

“Oh, don’t be such a prude,” Yoko scolded. “Take some bread, at the very least. I will not let you leave empty-handed.”  
  
“If you insist,” May sighed, leaning over Kyoko for a half-loaf of pumpernickel. “Now if you will excuse me, I had best be on my way.”

She turned to Sean. “You take care of yourself, now. I can’t imagine standing in that blizzard for so long did you any good.”

“I shall, Madam.” he said, nodding as the woman made her way to the foyer and shut the door.

With Madam Pang gone and Sean back where he belonged in the house, no one was sure exactly how to carry on.

Julian had gone to fetch him a plate and silverware, and Kyoko had handed him a bottle of wine and a glass, but as far as words were concerned, no one had any to say.

Yoko knew that, at some point, Sean would confront her about her mistake the night before. It was only fitting. But she wasn’t exactly keen to do so in front of the entire company. 

Fortunately for her, however, her son was not a man for public spectacle, and so she could be almost entirely sure that that dreaded conversation would be postponed to a later date. 

Dhani almost wished the young man had rotted in that jail cell. It was where he belonged, he thought, and in the day he had been gone, the bird had not once visited the company.

The danger had all but been destroyed. Until that cunning little warlock was dragged back to the house.

It was as if the universe could never let the young Sir Harrison off the hook. 

Sean, on the other hand, couldn’t have been more relieved to be sitting in that dining room.

After what had to have been the most chaotic twenty-four hours of his life, complete with mysterious strangers and magical visions, he could sit and enjoy the simple pleasures in life—baked onions and wine on a winter’s eve.

And, as he realized with a start, he was in enough light now, and in a secluded enough environment, that he could open the little black book in his jacket pocket.

Not even thinking to explain what he was doing, he pulled the cryptic cover from the inside of his coat and took a deep breath.

Most likely, he thought, it was some kind of bible, or perhaps even the madman’s personal journal. And when he had finished reading it, or at least had gotten the vaguest idea of its contents, he would add the quote the man had said, and that would be that.

He would give the madman his piece of mind, he thought, for better or for worse.

But he couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Taking only one look at the first page, he felt his bones turn to feathers.

_ BEAUTIFUL BOY _

_ Close thine eyes _

_ Have no fear _

_ The beast hath gone _

_ He doth now run  _

_ And thy father is here _

_ Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful _

_ Beautiful boy _

_ Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful _

_ Beautiful boy _

_ Before thou fall’st asleep _

_ Say a little prayer _

_ Every day, in every way, is getting better and better _

_ Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful _

_ Beautiful boy _

_ Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful _

_ Beautiful boy _

_ Out on the ocean, sailing away _

_ Ah, I still must wait _

_ To see thee comest of age _

_ I suppose we must both remember our patience _

_ For ‘tis a long way to go _

_ A tough road to hoe _

_ Aye, ‘tis a long way to go _

_ Yet in the meantime _

_ When thou find’st thyself in the street _

_ Take my hand _

_ For life is what happens to thee while thou art troubled writing other plans  _

_ Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful _

_ Beautiful boy _

_ Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful _

_ Beautiful boy _

_ Before thou fall’st asleep _

_ Say a little prayer _

_ Every day, in every way, is getting better and better _

_ Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful _

_ Beautiful boy _

_ Darling, darling, darling, _

_ Darling Sean _

The young man’s eyes widened. 

_ Goodnight to you, Sean. I shall see you in the morning’s light. _

In the cruelest way possible, he had finally gotten the goodnight his father had died trying to give to him. 


	48. Time Spins in a Circle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which revelations come to light and resolutions are (begrudgingly) reached.

Julian couldn’t for the life of him understand why his brother’s face grew so pale all of a sudden.

His hands shook, his eyes widened, and with a loud  _ thump _ that seemed to cause everyone in the company to flinch, he let out a single sound.

“Julian,” he whispered, his voice monotone. “I’ve found it.”

The longshoreman stared at the young man, bewilderment on his face. 

“What exactly?” he asked slowly.

Before the words had even left his mouth, the baker had shoved something into his chest. Julian looked down to see it, startled by the sudden move, and found that it was a small black book, its pages old and slightly yellowed, and its cover scratched.

“Open it,” Sean pleaded. “Please, you must read it.”

The older man frowned. “What is it?”

“You’ll know,” the baker groaned. “If only you open it yourself.”

“Very well, very well…”

As the longshoreman drew the book closer to his face, he cleared his throat, listening half-heartedly to his brother’s staggered breaths.

Dhani felt a lump rise in his throat seeing the cover.

If the warlock had found his copy of  _ Daemonologie _ , then it would only spell doom for the young witch-hunter. 

“‘Beautiful boy,’” Julian began, his voice projecting just the same as it had when he had read the sea witch’s prophecy.

Yoko gasped, her hand drawing immediately to her mouth.

“You- you found it!” she cried, turning to Sean. “But where was it?”

“What exactly has he found?” the longshoreman asked, beginning to grow tired of the lack of clarity.

His stepmother blinked a number of times, as if to make sure she was truly awake. 

“It’s John’s journal!” she cried. “The one he had lost!”

The man’s eyes grew wide.

“It is?!” he squawked, nearly dropping the book. 

“It must be!”

Like clockwork, the longshoreman turned several pages ahead of the poem, his eyes scanning over drawings of cats and flowers until, at last, he reached a date.

_ 29th of June _ , it read,  _ 1719 _

_ Pepper has discovered the harpsichord. There is no longer an _

“I don’t believe it…” he mumbled. “Sean— where did you find this?”

The baker, who had by that point rested his elbow on the table so as to hold onto his chin, let out a faint whimper, as though he were some kind of injured animal.

“I—”

Yoko tilted her head at her son, concerned.

“My God,” he heaved, his body frozen. “My God, it is all my fault!”

“No, no, no!” Yoko countered, rushing behind the young man to comfort him. “No, Sean, I doubt that!”

“You do not understand,” the baker replied through his newly-streaming tears. “Nay, you do not understand at all…”

“What is it that I—” the woman asked.

“Dear God… I- it was I who gave it to him…”

“To whom?” Kyoko asked, compassionate.

The young man sat back in his chair, his cheeks flushed.

For the first time in his entire life, he remembered the events of that night.

There was too little to do in the dark, the boy thought. With no sunlight and no one awake, he would have to be left to his own imagination.

This was no problem for him, of course. Night after night, after his father had shut his door, he would lie awake for long stretches of time, images of various animals, holidays, and fruits filling his mind, thus fulfilling his need for something to do.

And every so often, he would be granted the pleasure of listening to the rain or the storms outside, their might shaking the trees outside of his bedchamber window as though they were blades of grass.

It was during these times in particular that the boy would let his imagination run wild, picturing scenarios in which a family of foxes played in the rain, or in which the lightning that filled his bedchamber came alive to stomp upon the ground, and was congratulated in its strength by its companions in the clouds.

The noises he heard stimulated his thoughts. That was the cycle.

But no noise did he find more intriguing than that odd creak of the front door he heard, that rhythmic tapping upon the staircase that sprung him straight forth from his mattress, his eyes growing wide.

After so much time, he thought, his dreams had come true.

A raccoon had found its way into his house, and was, naturally, longing to be his friend. 

The striped little thing would walk right up to the boy, begging him to take care of it, and to pet it, and to feed it plums and give it maple syrup to drink…

And he could hide it underneath his bed, far away from his mother and father, who insisted that “raccoons were not a suitable pet, and would attack the cats, and would also eat everything in the house, and most likely would attack him as well and make him cry.”

It was going to make such a wonderful pet, he thought with a sigh. 

But he had to play his cards right in order to catch it.

Too excited to let it come to him on its own, he opened up his door and sat on his knees in the doorway, waiting to catch a glimpse of its fat little body.

Instead, however, in the light of the moon, streaming in through the window above the staircase, he saw the body of a man stepping out of his mother and father’s bedchamber.

“Oh no,” he said aloud.

He had been caught.

His father was telepathic, of course; he knew exactly when the boy was doing something he shouldn’t have been doing, and for reasons beyond his understanding, trying to smuggle a raccoon to keep as a household pet was very high on that list. 

At the sound of his voice, the figure drew back, its body freezing in the moonlight.

“Can I please keep it?” the boy begged. “I promise that I shall take good care of it!”

Tilting its head, the figure’s face became visible in the light, and the boy was able to see that it was not his father at all, but instead a bulky man with pale cheeks.

He looked a bit like a beaver, the boy thought.

“Oh,” he whispered. “You aren’t my father.”

The man said nothing.

“Are you a hunter, then? Have you lost your raccoon?”

Again, the man said nothing.

“Well… I suppose in that case, sir, I can take it for you. It is in my house, after all. I promise that I shall feed it everyday as well, if that so worries you.”

“It does not worry me at all…” the man finally whispered.

“Then it is done,” the boy said, beaming.

The man turned to look over his shoulder, a grim look on his face as his eyes fell upon the door.

“You must promise me something,” he muttered. “Can you do so?”

“I already promised!” the boy protested. “I promised I shall take good care of it, as good of care as I can give, and I shall feed it well…”

“Nay, something else.”   
The boy drew back, squinting in what little light there was.

“Oh?” he said, his head tilting at that angle only children can manage. “And what would that be, sir?”

The man tapped his foot, impatient, turning again over his shoulder.

“You must promise me that no one shall know I was here,” he whispered. “And no one shall know we spoke this night.”

“That is all?”

The man shifted his weight. “Aye, that is all.”

“Well, that is easy,” the boy laughed. “I never was planning to tell anyone at all! Why would I tell my mother and father about my secret raccoon?”

“Keep your voice down...” the man urged.

“Oh, my apologies, sir.”

“Thank you,” he murmured. “Now do I have your word?”

“Yes, indeed, sir!”

“Unconditionally?”

The boy hesitated. “Mmm… yes?”

“Under torture?”

“I suppose so, yes.”

The man let out a sigh. “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome, sir.”

For a long minute, the two stood silent, each studying the other with a hesitant yet curious eye.

And then, with a raise of his eyebrows, the man stepped towards the stairs.

“Are you leaving, sir?”

He turned around.

“I am.”

“Oh.”

The boy did not take his eyes off of the man as he tumbled down the stairs a bit too hesitantly, some kind of book held in his hands.

It seemed familiar to the boy, but he quickly came to realize, in a rather self-aware sense, that all books seemed to look the same to him. 

In fact, he hardly knew how to read.

So what difference did it make to him, he thought with a giggle. He was the proud owner of a secret pet raccoon, after all. That seemed to be all a man truly needed in his life.

Alas, there was no raccoon—he spent all of thirty minutes searching for the creature, disheartened, in the end, that it had escaped him before he had had the chance to speak to it.

Perhaps the raccoon was gone, but the man was not.

In fact, as the boy wandered about the town the next morning, accompanied by his much too slow godfather, he saw the man again.

Or rather, the man saw him, catching sight of the boy with raised eyebrows.

He walked over in a casual manner, his hands hidden under a thin cloak which the boy noted was completely unsuitable for the harsh New York winters, and smiled.

The boy smiled back, not knowing what else to do.

He opened his mouth to speak, then, fully prepared to drag the man under the ox’s cart for the unfortunate absence of his raccoon, when the man spoke in his place.

“Sean,” he said plainly, extending his hand to the young man.

The boy grinned, both surprised and flattered that the man knew his name.

“Good morrow, sir.” he beamed, shaking the man’s hand in a childishly unprofessional manner.

“You are a beautiful boy,” he said with a sigh. “I do hope you are aware of that.”

The boy blinked, his cheeks rosy from both the flattery and the cold.

Before he had the chance to answer the man, however, he heard his godfather’s voice calling for him, followed by the sound of quick footsteps.

He grabbed quickly onto the boy’s shoulders, a crazed look in his eyes and a frazzled tone in his voice as he reeled, “Well, you have a lovely day, sir, I do hope you do, but I suppose we had best be on our way right about now! Indeed? Indeed…”

With that, without so much room for a protest, the boy was then whisked away from the man.

He didn’t look back, of course.

But maybe he should have.

For the next night, after his father had spent hours searching for his journal, he was shot dead.

And as his son would only come to realize twenty years later, it was his murderer that had broken in and stolen the book.

For the first time in her entire life, Yoko’s voice seemed to drop an octave, her eyes wide and her hand placed over her mouth as she whispered, “Sean…”

The young man had no response, his dazed face planted low as his body slouched in his chair. 

The rest of the company followed suit, not in the slouching, but in the silence. There were some things, it seemed, some stories, more specifically, that no words seemed to be appropriate for.

Sometimes, silence was the best course of action.

Sean felt as though he could have been struck down dead on the spot, remembering everything. 

“Julian,” he uttered, sounding about as grounded in reality as the bird. “You were right.”  
  
The longshoreman tilted his head.

“Right about what?” he asked after a long period of silence.

“I mustn’t be so trusting,” the young man chastised, seemingly losing all sense of etiquette as he broke down at the dining room table. “I should never have been so trusting!”

Nearly the entire company—with the exception of Dhani, who was struggling to process the situation—rushed to console him, claiming the opposite all at once.

“Nay,” Kyoko assured. “You cannot truly believe it was your fault!”

Julian nodded. “What is done is done, I’m afraid. I suppose the only thing you can do is take the lesson.”

The baker flamed. 

“My father was  _ killed _ ,” he raged. “And you expect me to—”

“My apologies,” the longshoreman said quickly. “My apologies, truly, it was a poor choice of words…”

“Oh,” Sir Harrison sighed. “You are right about one thing. What is done is done, and there isn’t anything you can do about it now.”

Yoko shook her head.

“Nay,” she murmured. “Nay, that isn’t true.”

“What do you suggest, then?” Macca asked, crossing his arms.

George sighed. “Vengeance is not a suitable option, Y—”

“I will not speak for the rest of you,” the woman began, her heel clicking against the floor as she sobered up, her voice as commanding as it was when she was captain of the  _ Sgt. Pepper _ . “But surely you all are just as disturbed by these recent events as I am.”

The company all hushed, either too afraid to speak up, or too interested in where the woman was steering the conversation to do so.

“We have been drowned, taunted, teased, arrested, placed in the  _ pillory _ , kept awake for hours on end, and for what? What reason have we got to willingly flagellate ourselves for a month?”

“Do you speak of the bird?” Macca asked quietly.

“Of course I am speaking of the bird!” the woman shrieked. “That thing has done nothing but drive us mad! For heaven’s sake, it stole John’s soul!

“I cannot speak on your behalf,” she continued, her face growing red as a radish. “But I refuse to play in its game any longer! I refuse to be held at the whim of anyone other than myself!”

“What are you s—”

“I’m  _ sick  _ of this!” Yoko raged on. “I simply wish to live out what few days I have left in the peace and security of my own mind, free from any of this nonsense with the bird, and the constabulary, and any other forces that feel they must dictate the entire rest of my life!

“I can not—and, let this be stressed to high heaven— _ will  _ not willingly partake in playing a game that endangers my peace of mind, wellbeing, and more importantly, the  _ life of myself and my son _ !”

“So what are you going to do?” the siren asked, accusatory.

“I’m ending this now, goddamnit!”

“How?”

The woman tapped her foot up and down, impatient. After several heated breaths and a frustrated shake of her head, she uttered, “From this night forward, not a single one of you shall leave this house.”

“What?!”

“Those of you that have not been staying here, I will give you until the clock strikes ten to collect your things.”   
Sean shook his head. “Mother, you cannot—”

The woman stared him down. “This is for your own safety.”

“Safety?” Julian cried, his hands trembling. “Packing your house full of unwilling guests is supposed to be safety?”

“There is no other choice. If we wish to free ourselves of the bird—nay, allow me to rephrase my words: If we wish to see another  _ day _ , then we must outwait the bird.”

“Yoko,” Ringo began, his tentacles growing rose red. “Do you forget that Macca and I are creatures of the sea?”

“Take the tub from off of the ship.”

Macca’s face fell.

“Oh, you cannot honestly—”

“I mean it with my whole heart and soul.”

“Mother,” Kyoko interrupted. “Please, the mermen are right! We will run out of food!”

“Then I shall send someone out to buy some in the morning.”

“And when we run out of that?” Julian asked.

“I shall do it again.”

George placed his fingers on his throbbing temple. 

“There aren’t enough beds,” he said, his cheeks flushing in frustration. “Where do you expect Sean and Julian to sleep?”

“I will not stay here!” Dhani screeched. “I will not stay here with the likes of  _ you  _ and wait for armageddon!”

His father hushed him, holding his arm out in front of the young man.

“They can sleep in the parlor,” the madam of the house grunted.

“I will do no such thing,” Julian said, his foot bouncing up and down upon the dining room floor.

“In that case,” Yoko replied, her arm sweeping towards the young man. “You may return home—that is the choice I extend to all of you. Stay in here and outwait the bird, or run home and let it come to you.”

“That is  _ not  _ in the slightest how it operates!” Macca cried. “If we ever want to banish it, then we  _ all  _ have to be here! It doesn’t only want you or me or anyone—it wants us all!”

“So then we leave!” The woman screeched. “If it will only appear when we are all here, then we shall all disband!”

“I agree,” Dhani said manically. “I believe we must go back to Madras at once, do you not agree, Father? Father, can you hear me? Do you agree, Fa—”

George threw his arms up, annoyed.

“It  _ has  _ your husband’s  _ soul _ !” Macca shouted, his fingers curled in front of him, his muscles tensing. “It has Iyera’s! Does that honestly not matter at all to you?!”

“What matters to me is keeping what little family I have left alive!”

“So your solution is to starve us?” Julian deadpanned, a menacing edge to his voice.

Sean simply placed his head in his hands, overwhelmed. He had just barely gotten home, his muscles still aching from those long hours in the pillory. 

Not twenty-four hours before, he had fought with his mother. 

How cruel was it, he thought, that time spun in a circle?

“I will not say it again,” Yoko said with a sharp breath. “No one shall leave this house after ten of the clock tonight, with an exception for using the privy and buying food at the market. None of you are to allow the bird inside, and for the love of God,  _ that is final _ .”

“But we must banish it!” Macca argued.

“Then make haste and do so!”

The siren laughed, offended. 

“I do not think you understand just how complicated of a task that is, Yoko. In case you’ve forgotten, I am not, nor have I ever claimed to be, a magician. If I were to attempt to banish a  _ sje’inn’a’e _ , I would most likely send us all into an early grave.”

“You have that book,” the woman said. “Do you not?”

“I do…”

“ _ Then learn _ .”

The company sat in stunned silence, the realization dawning on each of them that there would be no resolution pleasing to Madam Lennon.

“Ten of the clock,” she muttered, taking her plate with her as she shut the kitchen door. “Be here.”   



	49. A Night on the Edge of Catastrophe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the company leaves to gather their things.

It didn’t take very long for everyone to leave. Ringo left without a word, holding a flabbergasted Macca in his arms as George and Dhani trailed behind them, claiming they might as well help the two of them get on the ship.

Julian had gone away as well, asking Sean multiple times if he was in any state to come and collect his things. But the young man never answered him, his consciousness seemingly long-gone, his normally chipper and optimistic demeanor having been reduced to a blank stare at the table, tears still streaming down his cheeks.

By the time the clock struck seven, it was only him and Kyoko seated at the dining table.

She watched him with a tilted head, her motherly instincts pulling at her heartstrings as her brain searched for something to say.

The poor boy had been through hell and back, she thought, and in only one day.

Smoothing the fabric of her skirt as she stood, she made her way over to where Julian had previously sat, and, not making so much as a peep, she set herself in his place.

Whether or not the young man noticed this, she wasn’t sure. 

He still sat motionless, his eyes transfixed on his plate as though it were some kind of savior.

Although his lips, cracked and dry from the winter cold, were parted, he said nothing, making not a single sound as his chest heaved in and out.

Kyoko tilted her head slightly, her brow furrowed.

And then, surpassing every expectation she had for the scenario, and particularly for the young man, Sean caved, a pained groan slipping from his throat as he threw his arms around the woman, his head nestled comfortably in the crook of her shoulder.

She tensed for a moment, holding him, but feeling the weight of his sobs on her shawl, she couldn’t help but place a hand on his back, the other cradling his head firmly, as though he were her own child.

“Oh, love…” she whispered, patting the young man’s back. “Come, now, do not cry.”

Sean shook his head, stifling a cry into his half-sister’s shoulder.

She drew the man away from her, drawing her hands to his shoulders as their eyes met, gently slipping on of them into his palm as he used the other to push his spectacles.

“All will be well in time,” she said softly. “It must be.”

Sean sniffled.

“Nay. Nay, it shan’t be, that isn’t—” 

Caving his chest in, he nearly turned to a puddle on the ground. 

“I cannot do this a second time!” he sputtered through tears. “I- I—”

“Cannot do what?” Kyoko asked.

Sean’s cheeks flamed at the question. 

“I cannot stay trapped in here again!” he moaned, his head sinking lower and lower to the ground as though his neck could not keep it upright. “I cannot stay in the dark, with… with all the curtains shut, and no candles, and…”

Kyoko set her hand under his chin to keep it from falling.

“Come, now, Sean. Tell me—when has that ever happened?”

He dug his heel into the floor, his head rolling back slightly at the woman’s touch.

“You wouldn’t understand,” he sighed. “It was after my father had died.”

“Oh?”

He shook his head. “God, she locked herself in here for days… there were no candles lit, no curtains opened… It was simply awful!”

Kyoko frowned. “She shut down, did she?”

“Exactly…”

“Oh, dear, I’m afraid that is simply how some people respond to these sorts of pressures.”

“Well—”

“You know how she can be, I’m sure.”

The young man forced his hand away from Kyoko’s.

“What would  _ you  _ know about her?” he hissed. “You weren’t even here!”

The woman crossed her legs, taking in a deep breath as she began, “Perhaps I wasn’t here, but you mustn’t forget that I am her daughter all the same, just as you are her son. I was born of her womb, and, at least for some of my life, even if it was an admittedly small piece of it, I was raised by her. Indeed, I may not know her as well as you, but I do know her. And I know for certain that when faced with a problem she feels she cannot deal with, she shuts down. 

“Enemies aboard the ship? Fine, you grab your sword and fight them off. But when the enemy leaves the physical world, and becomes an idea—death, grief, emotional turmoil— placed right in front of her nose, she runs out of rational options. She turns to the irrational.”

Sean pursed his lips. 

“It isn’t that there’s no reasoning with her,” Kyoko concluded. “But if you ever want to do that, you must understand where it is she is coming from. In her own mind, she thinks she makes perfect sense.”

“You’re too smart for me,” the young man sighed. 

Kyoko smiled. “There is no such thing.”

Then, revelling in the sense of sisterly responsibility she had cultivated, she added, “Now why don’t you eat something? Surely all that standing about in the pillory has you famished!”

“Oh, that’s very kind of you, although—”

“Nay,” the woman said. “You’ve hardly eaten anything. I’m sure you’ll feel better once you do.”

Sean let a faint smile part his face, relieved to have felt, if only for a moment, that Kyoko was truly his sister, and always had been, judging from the piles of food she was collecting on his plate.

It was a nice feeling, he thought. 

Deep down in his heart, he hoped it would last. 

How cruel was it, Julian lamented, that the night his brother finally came home—the night he was  _ supposed  _ to collapse upon his own bed, in his own home, on his own time—he would instead be forced to sleep on the rug in his mother’s parlor in the name of ‘safety’?

As he stepped into the darkened house, his lantern held in front of him, he shook his head.

The dilemma he faced was simple. It was a matter of how much he could carry, a matter of discerning that which was imperative to bring with him, and that which was not.

Some things, he knew, would have to be cut.

But, like the millions of other choices the longshoreman had made, it would not be a simple decision.

Lighting a candle, his lantern resting upon the floor by the entrance, he stepped into the kitchen.

Food, he thought, was a necessity. Not only that, it was a rarity, or at least it would become one after about two days stuck inside of his stepmother’s house.

Sure, he could go a day without food if he had to, as could those who had weathered years on the ship. The only person it would really become a concern for, then, would be the well-meaning but ultimately out-of-touch young Sir Harrison, who, upon realizing that he would have to go a day without a meal, or even multiple meals, Julian could picture snapping and slitting someone’s throat.

As he filled one of Sean’s baskets with a half a loaf of sourdough he had left sitting out, the longshoreman sighed.

It would only be so long before the company grew tired of each other, he thought.

If Yoko honestly had thought that stuffing them all into her house like hogs was the solution to the divisions the bird had begun to create among them, then she was dead wrong.

Not only did issues of the past (most of which  _ she  _ created) still linger fresh in the minds of the former pirates, but also issues of the present, the products of that hysteria growing among the haunted.

Julian had been a silent observer for quite some time, then, and it was becoming painfully obvious to him that the company staying together much longer was more of an intangible fantasy then a default reality.

Yoko and him had soured their relationship already, breaking the unspoken truce that they were to remain cordial to one another for Sean’s sake the moment she had started mouthing off about the Blessed and Venerable, the Saint above Saints, the Wholly Righteous John Lennon.

This had also not put her in good standing with Ringo, Macca, and George, all of whom agreed that her hindsight was unreasonably poor. Whether this was due to bias on their parts, considering how awfully they had all gotten along in the past, Julian wasn’t sure. But by that point, he didn’t even care.

Opening the cabinet door, he realized that he would have to go through the jars inside one by one, deciding which to bring with him and which to discard.

Starting with a light-colored clay vessel, he tapped his foot anxiously. 

Kyoko seemingly had no position or knowledge on any of the events of the past thirty-or-so years, and from the looks of it, seemed to be a pawn for anyone’s claims to be projected onto.

She was the unbiased tiebreaker, Julian mused cynically, and thus all biases had to immediately be poured upon her, so that she could push forward whichever narrative an individual wished to push.

And then there were Sean and Dhani.

Julian was worried about both, but especially so the former.

In all his days—or at least, in all his days since his father’s funeral—he had never seen the young man as upset as he had been that night, rambling on like a lunatic about why he believed he was responsible for their father’s murder.

He returned from the pillory a different man, it seemed. And the longshoreman’s greatest fear was that this new man had lost one of Sean’s greatest—albeit sometimes frustrating—traits: that spark of determination that lit him up like a bonfire, that dedication to a cause that had led him to uncover some of the greatest secrets about the bird.

And, Julian conceded, that blind trust that had seen him through it all.

If he lost any of that, the longshoreman could only fear the worst for their company. 

And as for Dhani, he had observed the same sort of change. Although he had not known the young man very long, the two of them only having spoken meaningfully once, Julian had picked up on his intelligence.

He was a man of reason, in the very same way Sean was. He was one of those rare fellows inclined not to the temptations of the heart, but to the temptations of the logic in the world around and above him. 

He sought out answers; he gathered evidence. He never took a leap without first looking into the gorge below.

But lately, Julian had noticed that this was becoming a bit of an incorrect statement. 

Something, and by God, he wasn’t sure what, had changed within the nobleman’s son. 

He was turning into an idealogue, almost, a man so deeply entrenched in his own opinion that he viewed anyone less extreme as him, or for that matter, anyone  _ perceived  _ to be less extreme than him, as a threat to his life.

He was skeptical of everyone and everything around him, watching everyone but his own flesh and blood with wide eyes and a single cocked eyebrow, as though they could attack him at any moment.

He spent all his time, it seemed, with his nose stuck in a particular black book, the likes of which he seemed to carry everywhere he went. And if anyone were to stumble across him reading it, he would almost instantaneously get up and leave the room, as though the secrets hidden away inside were too powerful for anyone but himself.

It was such a shame, the longshoreman thought, and in the same regard, a total mystery, how the young man, humble to a fault and so terribly fond of rationale and truth had before Julian’s own eyes warped into a paranoid madman.

Perhaps his case was simply a warning of things to come.

Perhaps they could be avoided if the company had all given each other some breathing room.

Too bad there was Yoko, Julian sighed. 

For reasons far beyond his own understanding, Dhani’s father had actually gone along with Madam Lennon’s plan to isolate herself and her company.

It was clear enough to him—she was preparing to kill them all, separating them from the outside world so that when the day of finality came, she and her son could slaughter them.

But his father, quite contrary to the young man’s knowledge, had not the foresight to recognize such an imminent threat. 

Which, put plain and simple, meant that George Harrison was signing his own death warrant.

There had to be some way to stop it all, Dhani thought. If only he could convince him that they needed to leave, then they would return to Madras as living men.

But therein laid the problem—once the others had all stuffed themselves into the widow’s home, there would be no privacy between the father and son anymore.

Surely, if they were to speak of such things—witchcraft, murder, and escape—then someone inside would hear them, finishing them off before they could warn anyone else, cementing their absence from the Indian subcontinent with one terrible creak of a door.

Not to mention it had already been tried.

Dhani had tried with all his heart to warn his father of the dangers that faced them in New York, and he didn’t believe him.

He was too far gone, it seemed, thrust into his disbelief by days, years,  _ decades,  _ even, of careful planning on the part of Madame Lennon and her son.

Their plot, however, relied on the assumption that none of their elected targets were aware of their motives.

And as of that evening, Dhani was.

He had to remember that, he thought, he had to remember that he was the one winning the battle of wit, whether Sean knew it or not.

And he would go on to win the war, he was sure of it, if only he could come up with some way to escape the warlock’s clutches.

If only he could be rid of him somehow, for only a moment, even.

He wouldn’t even think twice.

As George lifted the bucket, he took some comfort in the salty smell of the harbor in front of him.

It was the smell of the sea, he thought, his greatest nostalgia made even greater as he poured the seawater into the dingy old tub, its mismatched wheels holding it up on the dock.

“What do you think?” he asked Macca and Ringo, huffing and puffing as he carried his bucket.

Macca sighed. “I think Yoko’s lost her mind.”

“Given,” the old man laughed. “But what of the tub?”

“It’s even worse than I remember,” Ringo said plainly. “I think it’s gotten smaller somehow.”

“Certainly seems that way,” George wheezed. 

Ringo turned to the siren, sitting with him in the half-filled tub, and gave a nervous chuckle.

“We might have to take turns sleeping,” he joked.

Macca stared out at the water, not listening to him.

To this the cecaelia knew not how to respond. It wasn’t that he was a bumbling fool when it came to such social predicaments, far from it, in fact.

In the same right, it wasn’t as though he had never been ignored before, or that he had never tried fruitlessly to speak to someone too lost in their own thoughts to listen. That had happened quite a lot, actually.

It was just that it was in such a long-forgotten time, the octopus-man was almost unsure how to react when he faced the same ignorance. 

“Did you hear that?” he asked, softer.

The siren frowned, his eyes unmoving as another bucket of water was poured into the tub.

“Macca?”

After a moment, the siren sighed.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice notably dull. 

“Oh, that isn’t any problem,” Ringo assured. “I just wanted to tell you that we ought to take turns—”

“I heard you.”

“Oh,” Ringo frowned.

A cold sort of pain arose in his chest then, and although he did not understand it at the time, this was caused by that one terrible burden assigned to each and every sentient being, whether on the land or in the sea.

I am speaking, of course, of everyone’s best friend and worst enemy, that terrible, finicky, manipulative thing we call memory.

It’s the sort of thing that haunts us, a beast formed by our past experiences to influence those of our future.

Memory, indeed, shapes much more than we often care to think. Not only does it decide, in a sense, what actions we take, but also how we think, how we feel, and how we interpret the actions of others, consciously or not.

It was for this reason, unbeknownst to the octopus-man, that he felt that pain in his chest, that weight of memory pulling on his heart, being pressed onto him by the ghost of familiarity—the ghost of Rette Badinatta. 

Ringo saw him in Macca’s eyes, sitting in the garden, unflinching. He said nothing. He ate nothing. He never smiled, never cried, never replied to anything the octopus-man said. 

He just was.

Feeling the overwhelming need to protect such world-watchers, the cecaelia tilted his head to get a better look at the siren, playing with the idea of asking him if he was alright when Macca spoke up.

“I won’t make it back in time,” he said, seeming talking to himself. “I can’t.”

George was off trying to collect some more water; Dhani stood off to his side, his hand on his back as the man doubled over, his hand pressed to his mouth as he coughed.

It seemed there was no one to keep the siren’s morale up but Ringo, then.

But before he could say anything, Macca spoke again.

“There isn’t even any guarantee I’ll make it,” he muttered. “So why even try?”

“Make it where?”

The siren shook his head, his eyelids fluttering as he answered, “I can’t stay here.”

Ringo’s heart sank.

“You’re going to leave?” he asked.

“I’ll come back.”

“But… where are you going to?”

Macca swallowed, his eyes still locked onto the harbor in front of them.

“I have to go to Foryan,” he said. “Back to the convent.”

Ringo leaned forward. “Where Eschri was?”  
  
The siren nodded.

“Will you be able to find it a second time?”

Macca smiled pitifully. “I have to, don’t I?”

“Well… Stars, I’m not sure! Why do you have to leave in the first place?”

As Dhani poured in a new bucket of water, the siren grimaced.

“What Yoko doesn’t know,” he began. “Is that I’ve already read through the section in my book on banishing  _ sje’inn’a’e _ . I’ve been doing it since the first day we saw the bird. By the sun, I must have read it over a hundred times…”

“And what did you find?” Ringo asked, intrigued.

Macca crossed his arms upon the tub, still facing the sea. “They must be captured with a complicated spell and held in crystal,” he explained slowly. “At least most of the time.”

“Most of it?”

He nodded. 

“But I almost wonder… if we allowed it to finish Ethelein’s soul reading…”

“No,” the cecaelia interrupted. “No, Macca—”

The siren turned to him, a frown on his face.

“Are you _ serious _ ?” Ringo asked, his cheeks flushing.

Macca turned back to the sea.

“It was only a thought,” he sighed. 

“Macca, John is  _ dead _ .”

“But Ethelein has his soul.”

“So he can’t perform a soul reading!”

“Can he?” the siren asked. “Two of the souls are already there…”

At this Ringo lost it, his tentacles glowing a deep crimson.

“Your plan is to sacrifice yourself so that he can take  _ your  _ soul as well?” he cried. “Do you have  _ any  _ idea how terrible that would be?”  
  
“No,” Macca argued. “No, that isn’t my plan at all.”  
  
“Then for the love of Semolin, what is?”  
  
“I just— I almost want to see if I can reason with him.”

“Moons and stars,” Ringo lamented. “You’re turning into Sean.”

Dhani pursed his lips hearing this. 

“Maybe I am. But, you know, I’ve thought about it, and…” Macca frowned. “I could dig my claws into that bird. I could eat it for breakfast and not bat an eye. But what do I get out of that?”

“The release of Iyera’s soul, maybe? Not to mention Rette’s!”

“And Ethelein’s,” the siren countered. “I think the last thing we want is to have a  _ sje’inn’a’e _ ’s soul floating around, searching for a vessel.”

Ringo wished with all his heart he could argue with that.

“Think about it,” Macca said. “Iyera, at least, is able to speak. If we were just able to ask her about Ethelein and the  _ sje’inn’a’e _ … how it works, how we can get it to leave, what it wants…”

The cecaelia shut his eyes.

“You and I both know you aren’t ready for that.”

“But maybe—”

“Macca.”

He turned to face Ringo, his cheeks the palest shade of rose.

“I won’t have you sacrifice your peace of mind to try and reason with a demon.”

“Yoko’s already lost hers!” the siren argued.

“And look where that got us!”

Ringo sighed.

“Listen to me—I’m not going to sit here and tell you that it’s good she’s snapped. But you must understand, we, as a company, lose less if we lose her.”

“So y—”

“Let me finish. The last person we need to lose here is you. You’re the only person here who has any idea what’s going on, magically speaking. You’re the only person that actually knows how to banish a  _ sje’inn’a’e _ . If we lose you, we lose everything.

“I  _ saw  _ you after she died, Macca. You were inconsolable! And, you know, I still don’t think you’ve recovered from that. Not that I blame, you; It’s a very hard thing to move past, but… I can’t let you go off and do something that I know is going to set whatever progress you’ve made back to zero.”

Macca’s face fell, his eyes now focusing on the grain of the wood.

“I couldn’t care less if you go to Foryan,” Ringo continued. “Stars, I encourage it! If you have the opportunity to go and get everything you need, or better yet, to speak to the author of your book, then I say you should take it. But for the sake of the stars, Macca—don’t talk to Iyera.” 

“But I have to!”

“No!” Ringo hissed. “No, you don’t! For pearls’ sake, you’ll only hurt yourself!”

“And how would you know that?” George asked calmly, resting his body on the side of the tub. “You’ve no way of knowing how it is that  _ he  _ feels.”

“Maybe not,” the octopus-man admitted, “But I know him quite well. I’ve seen him grieve for Iyera, and I know how I would have felt speaking to Rette so soon after his death. I’m telling you, Macca, it isn’t worth it.”

For a long time, the siren said nothing. And then, with a sigh, he returned his gaze to the sea, muttering, “Maybe it isn’t.”

Pouring the final bucket into the tub, George wheezed, “So you’re leaving tonight? To go and get something, is that it?”

“Aye,” Macca soughed. “I should be back by the sunrise, at the latest. Gods willing.”

“And if you aren’t?” Ringo whispered.

“If I should find myself lost, then I shall try and find my way back here, be it from Wagosch, or Agratsch, or anywhere…”  
  
He lowered his veil onto his shoulders then, took a deep breath, and continued with grim determination, “But if you find that I never reach out to you—if I am to go missing—then pass this information onto my children in Na’atsji. You can write to any of them. Hei’eisja, Mairi, Tabanni… any one will do; I don’t mind.”

“Even Neie?” Ringo asked.

The siren frowned. “You could try it… although- I’m not sure if they’ll actually give it to her.”

“Why not?” George asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“She’s silent,” Macca explained. “She can speak, she just can’t sing well enough to attract a human. So the tribe doesn’t think she’s capable of anything, not even reading her own letters! It’s all a bit ridiculous, if you ask me… she couldn’t help it, you know, but…”

He sighed.

“It’s just how it is. Ethelein had the same thing, if you remember. It’s viewed differently in Riddidya, of course, but, he always did feel it was holding him back in his magic…

“Oh, I digress. If I were to continue, then we would be here until the sunrise.”

“So you had best be off, then?” George asked.

Macca nodded.

“In that case,” Ringo began, “We wish you the best of luck.”

“And I to you,” the siren said. “Heaven knows you’ll need it to explain to Yoko why I won’t be back by ten.”

The two others laughed, a more insincere sort of laugh that serves only to lighten the mood, not to convey any sort of genuine amusement.

“I shall see you in the morrow,” Macca sighed.

Ringo nodded.

“May the stars keep you.”

“And may you find whatever it is you’re searching for,” George added. 

Tossing himself off of the dock and into the water with a  _ splash _ , Macca sprung his head up. 

“I shall try my very best.”   
  


Yoko stared at the painting in the parlor, watching her own eyes as though she was looking into a mirror.

It was for her own good that she would cast herself into the darkness, she told herself.

It was for Sean.

Her eyes drifted to the bearded figure that sat to her younger self’s right.

It was for him.

It was for his blood, spilled on that floor like wine upon a tablecloth.

It was for him, lest she forget.


	50. The Storm Inside the Walls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the company does not go anywhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Talk of suicide

The sun rose over each and every house in New York the next morning, its glow penetrating the gentle fabric of the townpeoples’ windows with that delicate hand of God that so casts it forth. 

The citizens, be they British, Dutch, Indian, or African, could all take some comfort in this, knowing that their mundane day would at least be brightened by the light of the sun, a commodity hard to come by in those dark winter days.

Every house but Madam Lennon’s.

And every citizen but those confined within her walls.

They spent the long hours of the day on various tasks and leisures; whichever one seemed to suit their mood the best.

Sean, for example, having awoken on the sofa in the parlor, simply stared out of the window by the harpsichord, his eyes starving for the sight of the flowers that once filled the rosebox beneath.

His thoughts came and went in waves, each one of them given the precious gift of a couple of seconds of consideration before he cast them back out to sea.

He had not shown up to Mister Hocke’s, he thought. He was going to lose the only apprenticeship he could ever get his hands on.

He would have to become a beggar, unable to pay for his own food and drink, relying on the generosity of others to live another day.

He would die within days.

Too bad for that.

He had seen that man, he thought, the one he had seen the morning his father died, in the jail. 

He could have exacted his revenge against the man.

He could have stood up for his family name.

But what would it have been worth? By that point in his life, he had no idea how he was supposed to view his family name.

The name, of course, had been attached to his father, and as such was associated primarily with him.

And was that truly something to be proud of?

The townspeople had hated him. They had hated him so much, in fact, that one of them went off and shot him in the back.

Even his own son couldn’t seem to stand him!

Maybe, Sean thought, just maybe, he had nothing to be proud of but piracy, witchcraft, and general debauchery.

Too bad for that.

He was very quiet that day; the whole company seemed to notice. Whereas before he would be the one to fire up the company around a meal, delighting himself with his outlandish ideas and ironic jeers, he ate his breakfast that morning in silence. He spoke to no one, and did not so much as dare to glance in his mother’s direction.

He had become a shell of his former self.

A tired, jobless, desolate shell.

It wasn’t as though this was unclear to anyone, of course. Julian, leaned back in the chair in front of the hearth, bible in hand, was very keen to notice his brother’s state, as was Kyoko, sitting in the sofa sewing herself a new cap. 

The longshoreman’s eyes, though transfixed on the words of the prophet Ezekiel, did not truly read them for meaning, but instead for something to do.

Sinful as it may have been, his mind was too preoccupied on Sean’s troubles to worry about the captives by the River of Chebar.

He almost wanted to reach out to the young man, to ask him what it was that troubled him so; to console him for Yoko’s misspeak the earlier night and lead him to better days.

But Julian was not so bold, much to his own lamentation.

But there, I say, lies the advantage of a company, of a community of any kind—the ability to recognize one’s own weaknesses and pass the responsibility for such onto a more capable person, in this case, Kyoko.

Her eyes moving only momentarily from her work, she asked, “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing,” the young man responded after a pause.

“Ah,” Kyoko said, matter-of-fact. “So you’ve gone blind.”

Sean didn’t answer.

Julian lifted his eyes to meet those of his stepsister’s, dragging them quickly back to his book as the two made contact.

“How does it look out there?” the woman sighed.

“Empty.”

“Is there snow?”

“There always is.”

Julian set down his bible, his shoes getting caught in the rug for a split second as he made his way towards the baker.

“It can’t be winter all year, now,” he said. “Can it?”

Sean frowned, an intangible sadness cast over his face.

“I’m afraid I don’t know anymore.” he whispered.

Kyoko shook her head. 

“Oh, dear, you know he’s right.”

The baker crossed his arms, muttering something to himself insensitively before turning around and sinking into the harpsichord bench.

“I miss the roses,” he said with a sigh.

Kyoko smiled, a childishly innocent laugh escaping her mouth as she responded, “You would be remiss not to; they were lovely!”

Julian nodded, now staring out the window for himself.

He didn’t see anything but the outhouse and a heap of snow in the yard, illuminated to the point of blindness by the sudden sunlight.

Not exactly the most ideal place to brood inconsolably, he thought to himself. 

Still, Sean sat with a pale face staring at the ground as he said, “I should have told her to keep them.”

“Mother, you mean?”

He nodded. “I didn’t know what she was planning to do with them. If I would have, I would have stopped her.”

At this Kyoko’s face contorted. Turning to meet the young man’s eyes, she asked, “Is it true that she got rid of them because they reminded her too much of John?”

“She got rid of them because she has to ruin everything mildly enjoyable…” Julian murmured.

Kyoko shot him a warning glance.

Sean pursed his lips, hearing this, feeling no pain with the latest blow to hit him. 

“I can’t tell you  _ why  _ she did it,” he hissed. “I only know that she did it.”

“But do you think that it was bec—”

“Most likely.”

The baker swallowed, and then, not thinking twice, he turned to Julian.

“You really ought to shut your mouth once in a while,” he began. “It might do you some good. Both of you, actually.”

Julian muttered his apologies, his cheeks flushing as his eyes wandered towards the floor.

But just as before, Kyoko did the opposite, a disappointed look on her face as she scolded, “Now, that isn’t any way to speak to someone of seniority!”

“I hate to be the one to tell you, but few men say what is  _ polite  _ and  _ well-mannered _ .”

“How would you feel if Dhani spoke to you that way?”

“He has,” the baker laughed. “And quite honestly, I couldn’t give less of a damn.”

Kyoko let out a sharp breath. 

“Well, some of us do happen to mind whether or not those below us in age are respectful to us, and I find it only sensible that their wishes be respected.”

Julian sighed.

“How about we all just t—”  
  
“Since when do  _ you  _ have any authority over  _ me _ ?” Sean shouted, his face now red as a radish. “Since when is it polite and well-mannered to… to vanish for twenty, thirty years, even, and then return, and then believe that you are in any position to scold me as though I was a child!”

Julian put his head in his hands, defeated.

Kyoko simply drew back, her face betraying a hurtful sort of confusion. Her hand dragged instinctively to her chest, her eyes wide with disbelief.

“ _ You  _ are not my mother,” Sean continued. “And you aren’t any sister of mine, either! God! You truly think you can just appear one day and tell me what to do?”

Julian swallowed, his throat feeling far too tight.

“Sean,” he said. “That’s enough.”

The baker shook his head, ignoring the man. “I could have gone my entire life perfectly content in the knowledge that you never were born,”

“Sean.”

“I could have spent my days never even dreaming that I had a sister,”

“ _ Sean _ .”

“But instead,” the young man said, his voice lifting to the blank space between his eyebrows. “You had to come back.”

Fueled by the growing fear inside of him, disturbed by the edge in his brother’s voice that so resembled their father’s, Julian finally lost his temper. 

His hands shaking as he seized the young man’s arm, his head spinning, he shouted, “ _ Sean _ ! For God’s sake, that’s enough out of you!”

“Nay,” Kyoko said, respectfully holding out her hand to the two as she stood. “Do not scold him so.”

Sean and Julian stared at her, silent, their chests still heaving and their faces still discolored.

She let out a breath as she continued, “Sean, I think it would be better for both of us just to take some time apart and collect our thoughts. While I will not pretend I am unhurt by what you said, I admit that I am currently in no state to defend myself against such spiteful rhetoric, much less reconcile my own thoughts pertaining to your words.

“You are far too angry to speak as of now,” she said. “But you may seek me out once you have returned to your senses.”

Carrying her skirt alongside her, opening the kitchen door, she sighed. 

“Goodbye.”

Hearing the door creak open behind him, Dhani shut his book, turning around in the desk chair to meet his father’s eye.

But he did not see him at all.

“Good afternoon, Dhani.” Sean said with a sigh.

The young man drew back with wide eyes, his chair scraping across the floor away from Sean.

“What on Earth are you doing in here?” he asked, scanning the baker’s person for any concealed weapons or imps.

Sean sat down on what was once Dhani’s bed and shrugged.

“I’m not all that sure,” he said. “I suppose there’s nothing else to do.”

“Nothing at all?” Dhani asked dryly.

The baker tossed a hand in the air.

“Well, I have already tried to speak to my mother. That went about as well as you would expect.”

He laughed then, a malicious, teasing sort of laugh originating in the bridge of his nose, and Dhani tensed, feeling his mouth go dry as he watched the warlock.

“And Kyoko’s been no help at all… scolding me with her nose stuck in the air, as good as drunk from her  _ marvelous and incorruptible sensibility _ … Julian won’t say more than a word to me… Am I so wrong, Dhani, in seeking out your company?”

“Nay,” the nobleman said carefully, not wanting to reveal any of his suspicions. “Although I must wonder why it is my presence, and not that of someone such as Macca, that you so require.”

Sean wiped his hand over his face, scratching his palm against the stubble that had begun to form on his chin, and sighed, “Just tell me what you are reading, please.”

Dhani swallowed.

“That same book from our last conversation,” he lied. “The one that speaks of religion and… morality.”

“By the pretentious Frenchman, you mean?”

“I suppose so, yes.”

Sean hummed in vague acknowledgement. 

“What are his claims?”

“Oh,” Dhani said, poignant. 

He hadn’t thought of  _ that _ .

Still, he knew that if he did not give the warlock a suitable answer, then he would grow suspicious of the nobleman.

So it was with a cautious tone he answered, “Lately, he has been… discussing the morality of murder.”

Sean raised his eyebrows, not exactly content with the direction the conversation was headed, all things considered. “And what of it?”

Dhani straightened his posture. “It is a sin of the highest order,” he said, turning the fictional author of his fictional book into his father. “To steal a man’s soul from his body.”

“I should certainly hope so.”

“Those who commit such a sin, then, must pay for it with the appropriate punishment.”

Sean laid down on the bed, his legs hanging off of it as his hands rested comfortably above his navel.

“And what is that?” he whispered, the image of the madman returning to his mind.

“They will have their crime committed against them,” Dhani said. “Be it in this life or the next.”

The baker gazed into the blank white space above him. 

“You mean to say they will then be killed themself?”

“Yes, they will be. Or… something to that effect, anyway. Something with the same moral weight.”

Sean furrowed his brow. 

“But why,” he asked. “Why is the solution to violence to create a never-ending cycle of it?”

“I never said it was a solution to violence,” Dhani scoffed. “The only solution to violence is prayer. I was speaking of the divine punishment for it.”

“But that only would create more violence,” Sean countered. “If you were to kill someone, then as punishment, someone would kill you. And then someone would kill them. And then that person would be killed themself… It just doesn’t end!”

“You mean to say that you want those who slaughter their fellow men to face no punishment for such misdeeds?”

“Of course not,” Sean snapped, sitting upright on the bed once more. “For the love of God, Dhani, my father was murdered! What sort of  _ thing  _ do y—“

“That would be  _ Sir Harrison _ ,” the young man corrected, taking an obscene pleasure in the harsh tone he found himself speaking with.

The warlock squinted, his mouth agape and his cheeks a fiery red.

“Oh, do be polite,” Dhani sighed. “You look like something that crawled out of the jungle.”  
  
“Wise words coming from the exile of St. James’ Palace.”

Dhani drew back.

“You knew from the first day I came here,” he said slowly. “When I did not even know myself. But how? Who told you about my great-grandfather?”

Sean smiled maliciously.

“Oh, you just happen to have that general… Stuart complexion. You know, that inbred sort of appearance.” 

“How  _ dare  _ you!” Dhani cried, indignant. 

The baker waved his arms in the air. 

“Where is the lie?” he demanded. “Tell me, where is the lie!”

“At least I am not a half-breed!”

“At least I am not a bastard!”

Dhani stood up, nearly knocking over his chair as he did so. 

“At least  _ my  _ family name is respectable!”

“Respectable?” Sean laughed. “God, _Sir Harrison_ , get it through your skull! Your great-grandfather had so many affairs that he could not keep track of his own children, your father was a pirate, and somehow _I_ am the only one with blemish on my family name? What kind of logic is that?”

At this the young man’s face burned like an effigy, his hands trembling as though an earthquake had begun on the wood beneath him.

“It’s because of  _ you _ ,” he sneered, stomping towards Sean. “If I never would have come here, than my father would never have told me of our shames.”

“John Locke weeps over your irrational soul, Grand Sir Harrison of the Highest Order.”

“And God himself turns away from yours.”

Sean cackled as he stood up.

“I don’t know why I even try!”

With that, the door slammed shut, and Dhani was left by his lonesome, too angry at the time to comprehend the danger of courting a warlock’s scorn.

Huddled around the dining room table, Macca, Ringo, George watched the bird with focused yet apprehensive gazes, their muscles tensed as if the creature had extended its talons towards their throats.

It posed no direct danger, of course, its beady eyes darting to and fro as it preened itself, chirping sporadically every once in a while.

“Do you think it can understand what we say?” George whispered.

Macca bit the inside of his cheek.

“I wouldn’t doubt it.”

Ringo rested his head on his hand, his chin tilted as he watched the seagull.

“Who do you think it is right now?” he asked. “It isn’t talking.”

“Then it must be Ethelein,” the siren sighed, taking particular notice of how the bird met his eyes as he said its name. “Considering how long he’s been dead.”

George and Ringo hummed in unison.

Macca simply stared down at the looking glass in front of him. Cast in a violet hue, with a reflection of his younger self inside, he had taken it from Julian upon his return to the house, with the intent of demystifying it once and for all.

“It has to be him,” he murmured. “Look at this…”

Ringo leaned in, a bit distraught to see himself with a mustache again, and frowned.

“Because it is the same color as his tail?” he asked. “Thats seems a bit contrived…”

“Nay,” the siren insisted, turning to his friend. “Think about it—when we look inside, and it is violet, we see ourselves as we were on the ship, at least before John and Yoko were wed. It’s the same way he would have seen us when he died.”

George stared into the mirror from Macca’s right side, a grimace on his face as he saw the sea glass change from violet to marigold, Ringo’s discontent face morphing into a picture of the blue jay in front of the three.

“So then what does this mean?” the tax collector asked.

Macca tilted his head. 

“I tried asking the chaplain,” he sighed, nearing the looking glass to himself and watching it change again from scarlet to violet. “But he said he wasn’t all that sure. It isn’t as though he has your soul…”

Suddenly, the bird looked into the mirror, its head tilted as it blinked.

Macca pulled Ringo’s hand away from the creature, curious to see what would happen, but was disappointed to find that the bird simply lifted its head then and stared back at him.

He shook his head, leaning in towards the blackbird as he sighed, “Are you Ethelein e’Riddidiya?”

The bird let out a high-pitched chirp, its head leaning all around as though it were searching for something.

“Do you think it’s a yes?” Macca asked quietly.

George and Ringo shrugged.

“I’ll take it as though it were,” the siren sighed.

With a calm, if not misleading smile, he began, “Ethelein.”

The blackbird reset its gaze to focus on the siren.

It was a good start, Macca thought.

“What is it you’re looking for?” he asked. “What is it that you seek?”

The bird moved towards him, its body crouched low to the ground as it reached his hand.

“You want him?” George asked, confused.

Shaking its head, the bird opened its beak and lifted one of Macca’s fingers. 

He backed away from the pressure, only to be met with resistance.

“Be careful,” Ringo whispered. “You don’t want to scratch him.”

“I’m not trying to,” the siren grunted, pulling harder. “But he won’t let me…”

At last, the bird relented, a whine escaping its beak as it set the siren free, backing away from him on jumpy feet.

“There,” Macca said, pleased with himself.

George crossed his arms. “Are you sure it isn’t you he wants?”

The siren shifted his weight, extending a frustrated grimace to the bird as he sighed, “I’m not sure…”

“It’s harder than you thought,” Ringo noted. “Isn’t it?”

Macca laughed.

“You could say that again…”  
  
George tilted his head. “Didn’t that chaplain fellow give you any advice on how to speak to him?”

“Sure he did,” the siren said, defensive. “He told me plenty of things…”

“But not how to be patient,” the tax collector sighed.

Ringo crossed his arms on the table, tucking his head into his elbow. 

“You can’t say  _ Macca  _ in the same sentence as  _ patient _ ,” he joked.

“I’m patient!” 

George and Ringo both laughed, and just for good measure, the bird laughed with them.

At this the siren grew flustered, a groan building up in his throat as he announced, “It doesn’t matter! What matters is figuring out what he wants.”

“Maybe you just have to wait until someone else comes,” George suggested. “Someone who can actually speak.”

“Oh, no,” Ringo warned. “Didn’t you hear us last night? We aren’t doing that.”

“But why not?”

“It would be too emotional,” Macca said. “I wasn’t ready for her to die, you know… I couldn’t see her again.”

George pursed his lips. 

“Well, you did know it was going to happen, didn’t you?”

Macca blinked. “What, that she would die?”

The tax collector nodded, and with this the siren grew frustrated.

“Of course I did!” he fumed. 

“So why did you not expect it?”

“Oh, come on, now,” Ringo interrupted. “The last thing we need is to—”

“How could I have ever prepared for my mate’s death?” Macca cried.

The cecaelia was too late, it seemed.

“She was the love of my life, George! Do you think I  _ wanted  _ her to die!”

“Of course not,” George assured. “All I mean to say is that it could not have been avoided.”

“So I should have just smiled through it and pretended everything was fine, then?”

“I never said th—”

“Let me get this straight,” the siren hissed, licking his teeth. “What you mean to say is that it could not have been avoided,”

“That’s right.”

“And so  _ because of that _ , I should not have felt so terrible that she died and I will never see her again?”

“No, I—”

“I suppose the same goes for John, then, too,” Macca cried. “Don’t you mourn the murdered, George, because he was going to die anyway!”

“That is not what I said at all!”

Ringo watched in horror as the two bickered, the bird zipping its head back and forth as each man made his point—or insult.

Desperate to escape the situation, and understanding that the two were no beyond his control, the cecaelia turned around to see if anyone else was watching. And while he did not see anyone paying particular attention to the debate, he did see Dhani, sitting on the staircase in the foyer outside, a serious look on his face, his brow furrowed as though he were deep in thought.

He had no book in his hand, no plume with which to write. 

He just sat there, Ringo noticed, watching the world.

Moved with compassion at the sight, and reminding himself that the young man was known to experience bouts of inconsolable terror and sadness, the octopus-man figured he might as well go and speak to the boy.

Macca and George were—for the most part, anyway—perfectly reasonable adults. They could settle their dispute in an orderly fashion.

Or so Ringo hoped.

He moved out of the dining room in a friendly, unapprehensive manner, his tentacles dulling to a lilac sort of lavender as he met the eyes of the young Sir Harrison, who watched him intently as he sat down beside him.

Settling himself down, the octopus-man greeted, “Good afternoon, Dhani.”

“Is there something you need?” the young man asked.

“Oh,” Ringo sighed. “I just thought I would come and speak to you. You seemed lonely.”

Turning to him, he added, “Is that true?”

“That I am lonely?” 

The cecaelia nodded, and Dhani answered, after a moment of hesitation, “Perhaps I am alone, but I am not lonely.”

“Ah,” Ringo tilted his head back. “So you prefer your solitude, then?”

“Indeed.”

The octopus-man laughed. “Then in that case, I apologize for interrupting.”

“You are forgiven.”

“Yes,” he said, smiling. “I’m sure I am, aren’t I?”

George and Macca spoke in low tones in the room to the left, the likes of which Ringo strained to hear before realizing he had come to the staircase specifically to speak to Dhani; to listen to what he had to say.

Blinking, he began, “What have you been up to all day?”

The young man shrugged.

“Have you been thinking of your mother?”

Dhani crossed his arms, leaning on his knees. “I suppose so.”

“I bet you miss her, don’t you?”

He nodded.

“Well,” Ringo sighed. “You’ll see her soon enough, I’m certain.”

“It takes six months to sail back to Madras,” Dhani deadpanned.

“Maybe…” The cecaelia admired the designs on the wall. “But she will still be there in six months, won’t she? I mean, she isn’t going anywhere.”

Dhani bit the inside of his cheek, and was silent for a short while before he muttered, “We aren’t ever going back.”

Ringo’s face contorted. 

“Of course you are! Why wouldn’t you be?”

The young man shook his head, a sigh escaping him.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he whispered.

“About what?” Ringo asked, tilting his head.

Dhani tossed his hands in the air. 

“Anything.”

The cecaelia’s tentacles grew periwinkle. “You just feel like there’s too much going on?”  
  
“There always is.”

“But right now… you feel like you can’t handle any of it?”

“I can’t handle anything.”

Ringo frowned. “Well that isn’t true at all!”

“And how would  _ you  _ know?” the young man hissed. 

“Answer me this,” Ringo began. “Can you handle reading? Can you handle writing?”

Dhani put his fingers to his temple. 

“I’m not sure why I thought to ask advice from you,” he sighed.

“Oh, come, now… You’ll find I give good advice. Just ask your father.”

“My father’s gone.”

Ringo laughed. “Gone to the dining room, you mean.”

Dhani shook his head again.

“Nay,” he croaked. “He’s not the man he was when we first arrived.”

The octopus-man drew back. 

“You don’t think so?”

“Not at all…”

“And why not? Why is he not the same man he was a month ago?”

Dhani ran a hand through his hair. Lowering his tone, he admitted, “He’s given up on me.”

“Oh, dear, th—”

The young man furrowed his brow. “Nay, nay… he never was so distrusting of me in Madras. Not even on the ship did he hold such disbelief…”

He cast his gaze towards his shoes.

“I know not exactly when or how it happened,” he said. “But sometime after we’d arrived here, he just… I lost his trust.”

He laughed, seeming worlds more distressed than amused.

“He won’t believe a single word that comes out of my mouth. Not about the weather, not about the world… Not even when his life depends on it.”

Ringo considered this.

With a sigh, he said, “I think all it is is that he finds it difficult to accept the state you’re in, with all the visions, and the madness, and the fear… He wants to see you happy, and the fact is you aren’t. So I think the way he feels is that…”

The octopus-man shook his head.

“He feels like if he just ignores it enough, it will go away on its own. But it won’t, and he needs to realize that. The worst possible thing he can do is ignore it.”

Sighing, he went on, “I had a close friend of mine, you know—Rette Badinatta. He went through something similar to you, and I watched the whole thing.”

Dhani pursed his lips.

“I was a lot like your father at the time, I think,” Ringo said, his tentacles now a cool blue, his face stained with a wistful sort of pain. “I thought if I could pretend nothing was wrong with him, then nothing would be. And I’ll tell you what, it was the worst mistake of my entire life.

“I just… I never tried to talk to him about his pain. I just tried to distract him from it.”

He swallowed the lump forming in his throat.

“And now he’s gone. He’s dead. He drank a vial of poison one night after I had gone to bed, and when I woke up, he was already gone.”

Dhani’s eyes grew wide, his hand drawing back instinctively as the cecaelia tried to grab onto it.

Placing his suction-covered hand securely in the young man’s, Ringo concluded, “You have to look out for yourself, Dhani. If you listen to nothing else I say, then listen to that. Because sooner or later, you’re going to find yourself going out and doing something mad.”

“I’m already mad,” the young man whispered, his face blotchy.

The cecaelia sighed. “Then don’t allow yourself to act on your insanity.”

“Speak to him, Dhani,” he said. “Before it’s too late.”

Dhani nodded in response.

But he knew full well that he was too far out at sea, alone and adrift in the icy water.

No matter who held out the rope, he would drown.

He would never expect it, he thought, and not a single soul would expect it from him.

But within days, his head would sink into the sea.

Yoko went to bed as soon as supper had ended.

This was, in part, the fault of her old age, her muscles weak and aching at the end of a day, her need to sleep more overpowering than anything else on the planet.

But mostly, it was a result of the situation Ethelein had created, that state perpetuated by herself, its flames fanned by Julian, its coals the bitter venom of days long gone. That is to say, she went to bed directly after supper because she could not stand to see the state of her company.

For the first time in a month, Julian and Sean had nothing to say to each other. 

Kyoko offered only passing conversation, speaking mostly to herself and the wall as she sighed about the weather. 

Something—likely an old feud from the past—had clearly drawn a chasm between George and Macca, as the two hardly even glanced at one another as they ate.

Ringo spent the entire evening watching the young Sir Harrison, stealing a glance in his direction every now and then with pursed lips and crossed arms.

And Dhani, unnoticing, ate only a single slice of bread for his meal, barely touching his wine as he kept his gaze on his plate.

But worst of all, at least in Yoko’s mind, was the bird, standing ominously on the windowsill, peaking its beak out of her curtains as it watched her every move and twitch.

It haunted her, the thought of it. The coldness in its eyes, the tilt of its head as she reached for her glass.

It seemed almost too calibrated. A taunt, if you will.

An omen of things to come in the scarring silence of the dining room, tinted, at its edges, by the blizzard raging outside.

How ironic, the widow mused, was that storm brewing outside of her lightless windows, when the storm inside the walls was so much worse?   



	51. The Light Leading to Madras

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dhani has trouble falling asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I got this done absurdly fast, but I was really excited for this one... hopefully you are, too :)

By the time he heard the clock chime twelve times, Dhani was not asleep nor close to it.

In the pitch-black room, he relinquished his eyes to his imagination, allowing them to wander like drunken beggars in the dark, his vision not being necessary for him to think.

So strange was it, he thought, to have one’s eyes open, but unable to see. 

He had become a blind man, almost.

But he was not deaf, his ears ringing all night with the voices of the day.

He heard his father tell him the story of the English Restoration, his mother telling him in Spanish to pray. He heard Ringo warning him not to drown, Madam Beckett telling him the tale of her past.

But worst of all, echoing in his head to the point of ache, he heard Sean—the warlock—taunting him, mocking him and his family name.

He believed himself to be a clever little thing, Dhani thought with scorn. He thought he had the entire company wrapped around his finger, able to be manipulated in any way he wished, as if they were a piece of string, and he the needle that so threaded it.

But in that he was wrong, gravely so.

For Dhani had known all along—everything in New York was a facade. 

The bird, the looking glass, the roses upon Sean’s wall… all was a trick of the coventry, cleverly designed to seem as real as the sun in the sky. 

It was an admittedly intelligent move; that Dhani had to admit. The warlock haunting them with his familiar, then having Macca try and explain it with his oceanic witchcraft... He even had the foresight to stage debates between the two, making it seem as though they were on opposite ends of the gorge growing between the company.

But it was less of a gorge, really, and more of a sinkhole.

Sean, Macca, Madam Lennon, Julian, Kyoko… even Ringo—they all stood on the edge, watching with bloodthirsty eyes as the pit to hell opened up beneath them, and Dhani and his father fell straight down.

But the young man would not allow himself to be played like a deck of cards. He was too smart for that, and he knew it. 

Sean’s greatest mistake, after all, was assuming that his gorge was made of mud, thick and wet and slick.

It very well could have been—but with blazing determination, and a willingness to soil one’s very body and soul, Dhani could climb out of the pit, pulling his father up with him.

The stakes were too high not to, he thought.

If he lost to the warlock, he would lose everything. His father, his life, his ability to stand before God and say he had fought for what was good and righteous.

If only to keep that, he brooded, then how high of a price was his soul?

See, a new thought had wormed its way into his brain, a thought dark as the night sky, one that shook him to his core. It was the type of thought to be sealed away in the vaults of the backbrain, never to be opened again.

Unfortunately, this one could not be contained.

But therein laid the issue with such parasitic thoughts—as soon as they entered the mind of their host, they were near impossible to dispose of.

Dhani had prayed for hours that God would steal such ideas from the fabric of his mind, but as he discovered when the clock chimed twelve, they still were not gone.

Maybe, he thought, just  _ maybe _ , that was some kind of sign.

He sat up, the tip of his nose rosy from the cold.

God had said His piece.

Lighting a candle, he decided it was time to ask his forefather for help. 

Downstairs in the kitchen, Dhani shut the door quiet as a mouse, knowing that the warlock and his brother were fast asleep inside. The last thing he needed was Sean waking up and figuring out what he was doing.

It was difficult to see with just one candle lit, but the information at hand would be so vital, so critical to saving Dhani’s life, that he could surely find a way to manage.

Taking a deep yet silent breath, he opened the familiar black cover, and flipped to relatively where he had left off that evening.

**_Chap. VI._ **

**_ARGUMENT_ **

_ Of the trial and punishment of Witches. What sort of accusation ought to be admitted against them. What is the cause of the increasing so far of their number in this age. _

He swallowed.

_ PHILOMATHES. _

_ Then to make an end of our conference, since I see it draws late, what form of punishment think ye merits these Magicians and Witches?For I see that ye account them to be all alike guilty. _

_ EPISTEMON. _

_ They ought to be put to death according to the Law of God, the civil and imperial law, and municipal law of all Christian nations. _

_ PHI. _

_ But what kind of death I pray you? _

_ EPI. _

_ It is commonly used by fire, but that is an indifferent thing to be used in every century, according to the Law or custom thereof.  _

_ PHI. _

_ But ought no sex, age, nor rank to be exempted? _ __   
  


_ EPI. _

_ None at all (being so used by the lawful Magistrate) for it is the highest point Idolatry, wherein no exception is admitted by the law of God.  _

_ PHI. _

_ Then children may not be spared? _

_ EPI. _

_ Yea, not a hair the less of my conclusion. For they are not that capable of reason as to practice such things. And for any being in company and not reviling thereof, their less and ignorant age will no doubt excuse them.  _

_ PHI. _

_ I see ye condemn them all that are in the counsel of such crafts. _

_ EPI.  _

_ No doubt, for as I said, speaking of Magic, the consulters, trusters in, overseers, entertainers, or stirrers up of these crafts-folk are equally guilty with themselves that are the practicers.  _

For too long a while, Dhani sat still, his hands folded beneath his chin as though in prayer.

The grandfather clock in the foyer ticked and tocked, its pendulum swinging as its arms marched forward, counting the minutes and hours with deathly precision.

But time was of no concern to the young Sir Harrison. More important, in his mind, were the words on the page in front of them, unchanging as—and just as terrible—as the young man’s shameful ancestry.

They were like a curse, a malediction from his predecessor damning him and his silence.

It was laid out plain and simple for him on the paper, uttered from the mouth of Epistemon and stabbed into his chest.

He was just as guilty as Sean was, having not reviled him for the black-hearted warlock he was.

As was his father, even more so than him.

The beings above gazed at the young man from the sky, shaking their heads distastefully, at least in his own mind, at his misdeeds, while below him, from the bellows of Hell, a thick black tar arose.

It floated like oil through water up to the kitchen floor, seeping into the wood with malice in its mind, and encasing every inch of space around the young man’s candle, leaving him surrounded on every side.

He knew immediately what it was, created in that terrible corner of his mind.

Indeed, his darkest thoughts, having all been confirmed in ink on the page below him, had manifested. 

And now, he thought, they were here to choke him.

He was overwhelmed by the urge to run, to waste no time in grabbing his candle and sprinting out of the front door with no cloak, but found, much to his horror, that he could not bring himself to move.

The tar grew up around the legs of the table, swallowing them whole into the abyss, engulfing any hope the young man may have had.

His breathing picked up, his eyelashes fluttering as he searched for some—for  _ any  _ kind of escape.

He immediately came upon the glimmer of the doorknob, its metal glowing in the dim light of the flame.

But as he saw it, he did not run. He did not even think of opening the door.

For inside, he knew, laid the very target of his gall, as vulnerable as the lamb in the pasture.

Just thinking of entering the parlor, Dhani began to feel sick. His head filled with ghastly images, scenes of chaos and carnage the likes of which he could not fathom.

And yet there he was, in those images, standing in the worst position of them all, bearing the brunt of the trouble, clothes torn and face flushed red, cheeks dripping with sweat and blood. 

He tore his limbs from the chair and grabbed his things, tossing the book into his pocket and taking rushed care not to extinguish the only source of light he had.

He ran through the dining room and into the foyer, stealing one of the lanterns from its spot by the door. 

Burning his fingers as he did so, he painstakingly removed the candle from its dish and stuffed it into the lantern’s inner chamber.

Then, with heaving chest and bleary vision, not having bothered to toss anything over his nightshirt, he stepped into the blizzard, raging heavy as the thoughts in his head, and shut the door with a click.

Sean, laying awake in the parlor chair, did not notice the sound, nor did he think anything of it.

But just as twenty years ago, it seems he should have. 

Dhani was almost relieved by the cold.

But that, as I’m sure you would expect, lasted for about a second, ending as soon as he felt the chill on his bare feet.

It was unbearable, a sensation so blisteringly cold it burned. Feeling it, he thought he had better return to his bedchamber, and perhaps even stop a moment to warm himself by the hearth in the parlor. 

He would soon grow hypothermic in the weather, he realized. He would be bedridden for days.

And that, of course, meant he would only be  _ more  _ vulnerable to the warlock, who would be given easy access to his already weakened body.

Still, something drew the young man forward, out onto the snowy streets.

Something, he thought, as though from the heavens above him. As though God himself was leading him towards the edge of the wood, its trees obscured in the harsh winds of the storm above.

With shivering determination and sorely aching feet, Dhani carried out his odyssey to the opposite side of the road.

As he went, he noticed his eyes latched onto one area in particular, a section of the ground he could not tear his gaze from. 

As he stepped towards it on red and ponderous heels, he saw clearly in the light of the lantern that it housed a total of three fruits fallen from a shrub above them.

They were round and bright, golden in color, he noticed, with a distinctive pattern of indents along their skins, as though they were shriveling themselves up. 

In short—they were unlike anything he had ever seen in Madras.

Maybe that, he thought, was why his eyes feasted upon them with such vigorous intent.

He could not look away, and was, in fact, so entranced by their presence that he did not notice the bird fluttering into the snow behind them.

Until it chirped, that is.

He backed away on instinct, turning all about to search for Sean, knowing full-well that his death was upon him.

But to his own relief, he saw no one in the snow.

Not on the road.

Not at Madam Lennon’s door.

Not anywhere.

It was just him and the bird, which he could now clearly make out to be the same type he saw in Madras every day, standing by the wood, each afraid of one another.

“What do you want from me,” he raged. “Tell me, what are you here for?”

The creature stared down at the berries, and then back at him. 

“Go on! Tell me!”

With small steps, it encircled the fruits.

Dhani pursed his lips.

And then, lifting its head to meet his eye, it said one word, strangely clearly—

“Poison.”

By the sunrise, the guest bedchamber housed three new items.

An exhausted Dhani, a bottle of wine stolen from the kitchen, and three plump, golden berries.

What they would be used for was out of anyone’s hands.

The rope had been thrown, but the young man had not grabbed onto it.

The only thing he saw was the light at the end of the tunnel, the light leading to Madras.


	52. Three Days’ Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Macca discusses banishment.

Before the spread of bread, cheese, strawberries, corn, squash, and cod, the company sat unnerved. 

It had become undeniable by that evening that the eight were fracturing themselves into tribes, each person setting sail on his own sea, taking great care to avoid each and every person he did not, at that moment, want to be around.

The seeds had been sown on the ship, cared for in the days after its retirement, watered by John’s death, and were now blossoming in the advent of the company’s isolation.

Macca noticed this, of course—everyone did. 

Sean and Julian talked significantly less than they once had, being the best of friends when the siren had arrived. And Kyoko continually looked to her half-brother, her eyes searching for something that he wouldn’t give her. 

Macca and George had made up for their disagreement the evening before, but that did not mean the siren was not hurt by what he had said. 

Stars, he had told him that his mate’s death didn’t matter and that he should not have been so inconsolably mournful after  _ losing the love of his life _ . 

In Macca’s book, that was a sin of the highest order.

But he knew full well that if he ever wished to make it out of New York alive, he had to ensure his relationships with the various members of the company did not crumble.

That between himself and Ringo would be the easiest to maintain—the two were closer than near anyone. 

Still, the siren was disheartened to see his friend retire himself to the backdrop, resigning from any duties in the peril he found himself in by choosing not to take any side at all.

In his own words, he was on the side of impartiality. He was on the side of wanting to go home through any means necessary.

In Macca’s, he was on the side of cowardice.

Dhani did the same, blending himself into the background so as to avoid responsibility for his company.

Macca had spoken to Ringo the other night, and so knew precisely where the young man’s loyalties laid (although it was not exactly hard to tell from observation alone)—in his father.

If the man could be protected, however high the cost, then Dhani would pay. 

Macca supposed this could work in anyone’s favor or disfavor, a neutral sort of attribute that could prove itself a great strength, or a great weakness.

Its test would come soon enough, the siren thought to himself. 

For the time being, he would allow Ringo to keep an eye on the young man.

He had larger sailors to tackle, after all.

Specifically, that of Yoko.

In the past two days, she had attracted all of the company’s ire. It was fair to say, even, that her own son was beginning to resent her, having grown immensely displeased with her way of handling the situation before her.

Her actions were not approved of by George nor Ringo nor Kyoko, Julian, Sean, Dhani, or the siren himself.

The boldness with which she proclaimed the company’s isolation was sickening to anyone with half a brain, not to mention the old quarrels of the past—back then, the relationship between herself and her crew had soured to the point of dueling over biscuit. 

It would be an exhaustingly difficult task, then, Macca thought to himself, to try and rally everyone to banish Ethelein and all those souls he carried along with him.

He watched the bird, sitting patiently behind George on the windowsill with a look of smoldering will, intent in every sense of the word to be rid of it by the morning’s light.

Then, turning his gaze back to the company, choosing to focus on Julian in particular, he began, “If I may have your attention…”

The company—and to his dissatisfaction, the bird—all turned to him.

He swallowed.

“Thank you. Now—as some of you may know, the other night, after having been instructed to bring all of our belongings here, I traveled to a nearby settlement of seafolk.”

“Is this relevant?” Sean asked with a sigh.

The siren nodded.

“Indeed. For you must understand, this was not a standard settlement, it was a convent. A church, in your words. Or a temple, perhaps.

“Either way—I had traveled there for one reason, and one reason only: to collect what I knew was necessary to banish a  _ sje’inn’a’e _ .”

Turning to the madam of the house, he added, “Yoko, you should be pleased to know that I made good on your instruction. I read the book and all of that… I also got the chance to speak to its author; I had him give me some advice.”

The woman sipped her tea and nodded.

“So, I suppose I can say—at long last—that we are able to banish Ethelein.”

Sean pursed his lips as the siren went on, speaking of soap lanterns and crystal birds and all the other things he didn’t understand.

It would do everyone a great deal of good, he knew, to be rid of the bird.

But what would it do for him?

Because of it, however good or bad it was, he had had what was undoubtedly the biggest revelation of his life—the realization that he had never gotten to mourn his own father.

Because of it, he had learned to see the world around him with a new pair of eyes.

One month into its visit, he was only now realizing just how great of an impact it had had on him.

It taught him not to believe everything he heard about his father, be it from Julian, his mother, or anyone else. 

It taught him how to confront those repressed emotions he had hoped and prayed would never see the light of day.

It had taught him more than anyone else ever had, he realized with a start. More than Mister Hocke, his mother, Julian, Kyoko…

It had opened a window to a long-forgotten world, handed him a mirror with which he could watch the past.

It gave him the one thing he thought he would never have.

It gave him the opportunity to understand his father. Not the overly optimistic or pessimistic portrait of him that his mother and brother described, respectively, but his  _ actual father _ .

Dear God, it seemed as though it was only the other morning he had strolled down to the docks, his eyes wide as he caught sight of the bird’s crisp white feathers.

And now, he lamented, he would have to say goodbye.

He couldn’t possibly bring himself to, he thought, not a second time.

He would  _ not  _ lose his father the moment he got him back.

He refused to sit idly by and watch his early years repeat themselves.

“Macca,” he began, expectant of the argument that would surely follow. 

The siren, having been interrupted in his instruction, turned to him, surprised.

“Yes?”

With melancholy painted on his face, the baker sighed, “I feel we must allow the bird some more time.”

“I thought you might say that—but I must remind you, the longer we keep it here, the more of itself it’ll lose. Bear in mind, it has already reached a point where it has caused serious and nearly fatal harm to us.”

“I don’t care about that,” Sean blurted, too weary of the conflict facing him to construct a proper argument. “I won’t let you kill him.”  
  
“Kill him?” the siren asked, confused. “Sean, he’s already dead!”

“I don’t care.”

Macca began to grow flustered. “If- if we keep him here, he could kill us!”

“He wouldn’t do that.”

Julian’s eyes bulged.

“Sean,” Kyoko said. “Please don’t try to fight it.”

“And why not?” the young man asked. “Why should I not?”

“Because we don’t have time for it!” Ringo raged, his tentacles red as the strawberries on the table. “You are  _ severely  _ mistaken if you still think we have any time left for your antics!”

“Since when has the world run out of time to—”

The cecaelia slammed his hand on the table, causing Dhani to flinch and the plates to rattle.

“There is not a  _ single  _ second we can spare to listen to you talk your fins off,  _ ai durac _ !”

The young man turned to Julian for a translation.

The longshoreman shrugged.

“All any of us want is to go home! That’s it! But you know what? This entire time, you’ve done nothing but whine in defense of the bird, who I am disgusted to remind you stole your father’s soul from him and nearly killed your brother!”

“That’s enough,” Yoko demanded.

But the octopus-man did not listen, the peacekeeper finally snapping as he gave into temptation and fanned the flames of division.

“If that is honestly something you have no problem with,” he continued. “Keeping us here as hostages, advocating for demons… Then I should be rightly ashamed to call you a member of this company!”

“I said  _ enough _ !” the captain screeched, causing Julian to nearly jump out of his skin.

“And  _ you  _ have no problem abandoning my father, Macca’s mate, Ethelein, and whoever else?” Sean put forth.

The cecaelia’s face grew pansy blue.

As he shouted, refuting the notion, and as the company all shouted over one another, none of them was so keen to take a look at the bird on the windowsill.

Its pupils dilated, its body turned to lead.

As the looking glass in Julian’s shirt pocket turned to a brooding, storming violet, it finally connected all of the threads.

Its company did not like it—they never had. 

Since the very beginning, they had wanted nothing to do with it, scolding it, tossing ink-black pearls at it, shutting it out of their homes.

It was the parrot in the flock of pigeons, the ram among the dogs. It was the unwanted outsider, immediately spotted and immediately disposed of, should its company believe it had worn out its use. 

Now, thought the bird, at the final hour, after all of its trials and tribulations, it would be cast off without so much as a farewell.

At the very end of the story, at its climax, even, while it still had so much to do and to make sure of—it would lose all it had ever known, all it had ever wished to have known.

It never would be able to warn them.

Shaking in its feathers, it realized it had only one choice.

Beneath the torrent of voices, the clamor and bedlam they spewed from their throats, it flew.

It soared high into the air, brushing up against the ceiling, careful not to extinguish the candle flames as it went.

Its eyes caught many a glimmer of the silverware below, trailing across forks and knives and spoons until it eventually noticed one thing.

Kyoko, raising her voice in the calamity and growing visibly frustrated, was holding her knife as her hands waved frantically in the air.

Out of her mouth raged begs and pleads to those at the table to please lower their voices, if not for the sake of decency, then for Julian, who by this point had grown so upset at the state of those around him that he no longer seemed aware of their actions, nor anything going on around him.

The pieces were set, then, the bird thought.

It would do what had to be done.

If only to save its company, it would give its very soul.

With a dreadful swoop, now fully acknowledged by those at the table, it dove down towards Julian. Hovering in the air by his torso, then, it used its talons to scratch at his pocket, the contents of which it was well-aware. 

The longshoreman paused, seeing it, snapping out of his trance as he heard the voices to his left, right, and center die down.

“What is it doing?” Macca whispered.

Julian drew his fingers nearer to the area it was scratching, and then, with quick realization, he said, “It wants the looking glass.”

The company drew near to him as he grabbed hold of the mirror, watching with wide eyes and deep, carved frowns as the bird floated down onto the table, nodding at the sight of the sea glass set down on the wood before its feet.

Nearer still, they drew, as it used those feet to drag that mirror towards Kyoko, to make its way towards the young woman, seeing her eye-to-eye as it moved.

But no nearer did they draw to the bird then when it raised itself into the air, the light of the candle illuminating its body, be it white, grey, black, green, red, blue, or any other trick of the light, in such a way that its feathers glowed with a red radiance, a tint, if you will, the same color as a lotus floating serenely on the water.

It wondered, only in that brief moment in time, how it would feel, to march across that frozen lake into the unknown wood ahead a second time, to travel through the stars and return to Earth.

It wanted to speak, it decided, with a clear voice.

It wanted to feel the sun on its back, see every color it could, taste the sweetness of honey, breathe in the air, if only for a single minute of a single hour.

And it would, it thought.

It would do everything it had ever set out to do.

As the clock ticked to the twenty-seventh minute of the twentieth hour, on the twenty-second day of the twelfth month, the bird tossed its body forward, its chest aching and its vision blurring as the knife slid cleanly through its muscles, tearing through veins and arteries until it reached the air outside of the body.

Sean shrieked like never before.

On the edge of fainting, Kyoko saw the blood, trailing in a single grotesque stream down the blade of her knife, down the hilt, down the crook of her quaking fingers. 

To the bird, there was only noise, only Sean’s screech that rang out through the room, the banshee to his impending demise. 

Around him, shouts and wails pierced the air, buzzing and blistering in the midst of the scene.

Its mind grew hazy as pure red drops of blood began to drip onto the looking glass, remembering only the vaguest images of nothingness.

The feeling of drowsiness weighing down its feathers, its eyelids too weary to keep open as its head sunk under the sea.

The sensation of tilting back its head in the dark, heart throbbing and mind racing, and growing oddly serene as poison slipped down its throat.

The sight of the stars, cold and bright in the night sky, like salt spilled across the void, as its head hit the cobblestone.

The sound of a tearful siren describing a clear blue day in fields of flowers.

And the great unknown that laid in the mist. 

All this and more did the creature feel as it watched, with vision obscured by the hand of death, the looking glass beneath it grow a perfect, pearly, ivory white. 

The company watched in terror as the images appeared, first of Ethelein, a boy, and then a young man. He grew, his face aging, his eyes discolored with worry, his person adorned with an unchanging amount of pearls and gems, symbolizing his magical achievements, until at last, his skin turned to feathers, his mouth to a beak.

With a bellowing breath, he let out a cry. 

And then Rette, growing in the same fashion as the sea witch, from a boy to a man to a hollow corpse found laying in his shell.

Ringo couldn’t bear to look, his arms held tightly around Macca as his body trembled.

The siren panted, fearing the worst.

And then it came. The mirror showed a new image, then, that of a dirty-faced orphan boy working the docks. He grew within moments to man, a smirk appearing on his face as his hair and beard grew longer. Spectacles suddenly presented themselves, and in a single moment, the right lens became covered in blood, its glass tinted from the murder.

Then, wasting no time in sparing the feelings of the company, came a young siren girl, growing within no time to a woman, a smile spreading across her face. Her hair grew shorter and longer, shorter and longer, until at last, her face paled. She seemed to age one hundred years in one second, and then, with a glassy stare, she was gone.

It seemed as though the presentation was over, and for a half second, the company breathed as much of a sigh of relief as they could.

Half a second, I say, because in the latter half appeared someone new.

He was a young boy with a thick, almost continuous pair of eyebrows, a frivolous and extraordinarily curly black wig, and a very fanciful jacket, embroidered delicately beneath a massive jabot. 

On his face he wore a belligerent expression, a look in his eyes that conveyed a certain sense of contentment, a blissful ignorance to the world around him. 

But as he grew, the company noticed a change take place.

His brow furrowed, his expression shifting gradually to one of deep concern. He looked all about for a single second, and then, his face growing dirtied and his cheeks rosy with ale, the wig fell off, revealing a head of messy brown hair underneath as his outfit changed to that of a common sailor.

George’s eyes grew wide as the full moon, staring at himself in the mirror.

He grew his hair and beard, the lengths varying with every second, and it was then that wrinkles began to appear on his face. 

He grew old and gray a single moment, and then turned to a cloud of smoke in the mirror, no trace of him left.

Dhani was shouting at the top of his lungs, begging and screeching on bended knee to make it stop, to bring the horrible events unfolding to a grinding halt.

The bird paid no mind to this, blood trailing through his heart down to the edge of the table in a slow, almost teasing stream. 

With its dying breath, it watched as its company grew silent.

The last thing the dove, the pigeon, the raven, the blackbird, the seagull, the crane, the bluejay, and the emerald dove ever heard was a small crack.

At that, its eyes closed into finality. 

All at the table grew silent, seeing this.

Sean was doubled over, his mouth pressed firmly against his hand as he clung onto Julian for dear life.

The longshoreman stood mouth agape, shaking like a child at the sight of the bird’s corpse.

Macca felt as though he himself had died, knowing better than anyone what the creature’s death meant for their company.

Ringo’s tentacles grew whiter than a dove, his face pale and his eyes wide.

George stood back, away from the table, afraid for his life for the first time during his stay, his chest heaving with rapid breaths as the image of that young man burned in his mind.

Dhani held steadfast with his father, backing into the wall, all but certain he must have been hallucinating. 

Yoko drew back at the sight, tears not of sadness, but of pure confusion obscuring her vision.

And Kyoko, with bloodstained hands, grew disgusted by herself, dropping the knife—and the bird’s bloated corpse along with it—to the table with a terrible  _ thud _ .

The siren opened his mouth to speak.

And then, to the shock and horror of the bystanders, the mirror began to vibrate.

Its cracked hue turned to a deep, swirling black, richer than night itself, as black as the hearts of murderers, and without warning, with a deafening sound, the sea glass shattered.

Macca opened his mouth to scream, but found that he was unable to, trapped in a living nightmare with nothing but a dead bird and a broken mirror.

From the scattered pieces of inky glass, then, arose a figure in emerald mist, building itself up in swirls and trails, a frigid air filling the dining room.

His eyes widening, Macca lifted his veil to cover his hair. 

Reaching the top at last, a pair of eyes made themselves clear in the mist, unblinking and cold as stone.

A voice spoke in every language, every tone separate from one another, and in the same right, unanimous.

“Tabanni Macca,” it said.

It was only once the figure crowned herself with a wreath of sharpened bones that the siren recognized her.

“Disciple Saruyo…” he gasped, bowing his head without taking his eyes off of the venerated. 

Ringo looked like his eyes were going to pop out of their sockets.

Respectfully, George bowed his head as well.

The disciple took a long look around the room, taking time to study each and every person inside before returning to Macca.

“Retrieve the witch’s pendant,” she commanded.

The siren blinked rapidly, stammering to say that it was in his satchel in the parlor before discovering the shape in his hands.

He held it up in his left hand, clinging onto it from below.

“ _ Assa, zett ero, _ ” he said. “Yes, my lady.”

“Place it in my hand.”

The siren swallowed, his hand drifting towards the mist.

“ _ Assa, zett ero. _ ”

With long, blisteringly cold fingers, the disciple ran the metal through her hand, its surface shining in the light of the candles.

Macca pulled back, adjusting his veil as the patroness of death turned her head quickly about the table, her neck spinning as though it were not attached to her spine at all.

Then, in a flare of the fog, she grew eight faces, each with two eyes to take a look at one member of the company.

In eight voices, she boomed, “I speak to the company of Ethelein Nebiyatic of Riddidiya, do I not?”

Macca and Ringo both nodded.

“ _ Assa, zett ero. _ ”

With eight chins, the disciple nodded, and with one arm, arising in a haze from the mist, pointed towards the bleeding body of the bird.

“And so the physical form of the witch has deteriorated.”

Kyoko was too shocked to even speak.

“ _ Assa, _ ” Julian added quickly.

Macca and Ringo cringed at the longshoreman’s lack of the proper title.

“Forgive him,” the siren pleaded. “He knows not what h—”

“I did not ask forgiveness,” Saruyo bellowed. “I asked for an answer.”   
Macca bowed his head low to the table.

“Then forgive  _ me _ , my lady.”   
The disciple cast her eyes away from him and continued, “Gaze upon this altar and tell me—the familiar of Ethelein Nebiyatec is dead, is it not?”

“Yes, my lady,” Ringo replied.

Her eyes lit up, mist blistering from their sheer radiance.

“As is in accordance,” she said. “Now draw nearer and heed my words.”

Macca leaned in, and the others followed suit, if not very cautiously. 

“I come,” the disciple continued. “With a sooth, which very closely you must heed.”

Macca furrowed his brow.

Extending her arm to the ceiling, swirling it all about her until an image of a bird appeared in the mist, violet and as bright as the sun, she began, “A white bird calls in the wintry morn, while by its beak the people mourn. And from its mouth, it spews its words, those which mustn’t go unheard. 

“For days and nights the eight had searched, and in the midst, their names besmirched. Words in a dream are all but observed, for the good nature of intuition is what they preserve.

“So keep your wits about you in the strawberry fields, your rationale in the garden, your collectivity among kings, and beware the music of strings. 

“Keep away from the marigolds, lest they turn to vines, look not in the water, and drink not the wine. Sing the hymns of mercy, give alms in forgiveness, and only then may you bear the dead’s witness. 

“Lest you wish to pay your price, take to heart the scotsman’s advice.”   
Sean stared down at the ground, feeling as though the world was being pulled out from under him as a rug torn from the wood.

“Observe your actions from your enemy’s eyes,” the disciple demanded. 

Raising the pendant to the bird in the mist, and slicing it in four equal parts, she concluded:

“In three days’ time, the prophet shall rise.”

Macca’s face fell to the core of the earth.

But just as quickly as she had arrived, Saruyo vanished, the mist being drawn back into the scattered pieces of glass.

The heat returned almost supernaturally to the room, as though someone had removed all of the cold air within a single second.

As the siren lifted his head to take one last look at the eight-faced harbinger, he found, instead, seven pairs of eyes all watching him, expectantly.

Shutting his eyes for a long minute, taking a deep breath, and trembling all the way, he tenderly pulled the remains of the blackbird’s body off of Kyoko’s knife and set its bleeding corpse onto a handkerchief extended to him by the woman. 

He would not weep for the bird, he thought.

He could not.

How could you mourn someone who was not leaving you, but was, in fact, returning?

_ 71 hours and 59 minutes. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does that count as major character death, or...?


	53. Mercy Unstrained and Feelings Unspared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Julian comes to visit Kyoko.

It was late the next morning, directly after breakfast, when Julian pressed his fist against the bedchamber door, a look of apprehension in his eyes and heavy bags beneath them.

“Do come in,” the woman’s voice responded.

The longshoreman did as he was told with a sigh of relief, drawing his hat over his heart as he strolled into the room.

Kyoko was lying in her bed, her hair long and disheveled, still dressed in her shift.

There was a soft smile on her pale face, her hands resting above her navel, a book at her bedside as she greeted with a raspy tone, “Fair morrow.”

The longshoreman nodded. “Fair morrow.”

“Is there something you require of me?”  
  
“Nay,” Julian sighed, taking a seat at the desk in the room. “I merely supposed I should come and visit you, should you find such a course of action pleasing.”

The woman smiled.

“Of course I do.”

“Very well, then,” the longshoreman said with a nod. “Tell me—Yoko said you’ve fallen ill?”

“It would seem that way,” Kyoko sighed. “But do know that it isn’t anything serious. It is a frivolous thing, truly, a passing sort of sickness.”

“What do you think it is?” 

The woman looked off into the distance.

“Oh, I’m not sure. It is insignificant—that is what I think.”

Julian furrowed his brow.

“Illness is not usually an insignificant sort of thing, Kyoko.”

“Well, then, this one is. Just—oh, my mother must be terribly worried…”

“She is,” the longshoreman sighed. “You would think with everything else going on, she would simply keel over and die.”

Kyoko shrugged.

“She’s far too stubborn to let herself die.”

Julian grinned, blowing air out of his nostrils as he said, “Certainly, certainly…”

“Whatever it is she told you,” Kyoko continued. “I’m sure it was very extreme. Don’t listen to it, you’ll worry yourself dead.”

“Ah,” the longshoreman said, shaking his head. “You know me well.”   
And then, after a short pause, he went on, “Now, tell me—what is it that you feel, exactly?”

“Ah, I am not in such a poor condition,” his stepsister explained. “My hands are cold, my throat aches something awful, and I find my heart beating twice as fast as is usual… but I do not let it bother me.”

“That sounds serious,” Julian said, furrowing his brow. “Perhaps we should call a doctor?”

“Oh,” Kyoko scoffed. “A doctor would never step foot in this place. And a hundredth time, Julian, I assure you—I am perfectly alright.”

The longshoreman bit the inside of his cheek.

“But don’t you think it’s rather strange,” he said quickly. “That the morning after the bird’s death, you fall ill?”

His stepsister sighed.

“Perhaps I do find it a bit frightening… but I trust in the Lord to watch over me. To watch over us all, rather.”

“He’s not done anything for us thus far,” Julian murmured.

“Oh, do not blaspheme!” Kyoko chastised. “Have you no faith in Him?”

“Of course I do,” the longshoreman sighed. “But as far as Macca’s concerned, God spoke to us yesternight, and all He told us was to keep away from marigolds.”

“That was not God,” the woman refuted. “I’m not exactly sure  _ what  _ it was, granted, but I know what it wasn’t.”

“An angel, perhaps?”

“An angel of death…” 

Julian leaned back in his chair. “I can’t stop thinking about it,” he said. “Anything that happened last night, really. It just…”

“It feels like a dream.”

He nodded.

“A nightmare.”

Kyoko tilted her head, staring at the floor in front of her as she slowly began, “What do you think it meant? The woman in the mist, that is. What do you think she was telling us?”

“Heed the Scotsman,” Julian said, sure of himself. 

“We cannot heed any person that isn’t among us,” The woman refuted.

At this Julian drew in a deep breath.

“I think he is,” he said quietly. “In fact, I’m rather sure of it.”

“But how?”

He crossed his arms, slouching down in the chair and drawing his right leg over his left as he began, “Three days ago—when Sean was in jail—I had a dream.”

Kyoko turned to him, considerate.

“I dreamed I was outside of this house,” Julian continued with a furrowed brow. “I was staring at the woods. But everything around me… it just… it felt so strange. As though it weren’t real…

“Either way,” he stammered. “Next to me was a Scotsman, a very old one, I think. Or at the least, very dense in the head… he spoke in a very antiquated type of dialect. With the yes and thees, you know.”

Kyoko laughed.

“So you mean to say you met an average Scotsman.”

Julian let out a single forced chuckle.

“I suppose so, yes. But—you must understand, it was only the two of us, so I thought at the time. It was just myself and him, staring at the sky.

“He never told me his name, but he said there was a portrait of him on the mantle in the parlor.”

“Oh, yes,” Kyoko said, nodding. “I know what you speak of. It’s the man with the dark hair, is it?”

“Right?” Julian asked. “I was looking at it last night before I went to bed. It was him without a doubt.”

The woman hummed at this, realizing with a start that she had begun to pick up on her stepbrother’s habits.

“Still, I was standing with him, thinking I was alone, when all of a sudden he asks me, ‘You are John Lennon’s son’s, are you not?’”

Kyoko leaned her head back.

“And of course, I think to myself, ‘Of course I am,’ but it was in that moment I realized Sean was with me. It was the strangest thing, I tell you… I could not see him, I could not feel him there, even, and yet there he was.

“I tried to ask him where he was, but the Scotsman interrupted. He said he did not have much time with us, if my mind does not fail me, and then told us to listen carefully to what he said.”

“And what was that?” Kyoko asked quietly.

Julian squinted, staring off into the distance as he struggled to remember the details.

“He said he had stood with our father in that same spot,” he recalled. “In a dream, I assume. And then the next night he was killed. 

“He said he saw the bird. He watched it take his body and lift it into the sky…”

Kyoko shivered.

“And then he turned to us, very suddenly, and he told us that we were part of something so much larger than we could ever know, that there had been some terrible misunderstanding…

“He said that he feared the bird’s wrath, I believe. And then he told us to take a look at ourselves…

“And I did,” the longshoreman whispered, his eyes squinted and glassy. “And I was not myself at all.”

He shook his head.

“I was my father.”

Kyoko drew her hand to her breast, alarmed.

“And after that,” Julian sighed. “I awoke.”

“That sounds terrible…”

“Ah, Lord, you’ve no idea. I cannot for the life of me understand what it is he meant, saying Sean and I were more important than we know.”

“Of course,” the woman sighed. “I suppose it’s all dependent on what it is you are important in, honestly. In this situation, with the bird and all, or in history, science, politics, the company in general… Oh, for all we know, he could simply have been telling you to like yourself some more.”

“It seems all we do these days is understand things,” Julian mourned. “The prophecy, the Scotsman’s words, that message from the lady of the mist… We can’t ever catch a break, can we?”

“Not even for Christmas,” Kyoko added.

Julian leaned back at this, humming as he racked his brain for the appropriate answer, when to his surprise the door opened.

“It doesn’t matter,” Sean said seamlessly, a tray in his hands topped fully with eggs, porridge, beans, bread, and tea. “My mother can’t stand Christmas.”

Kyoko drew back.

“Is that for me?” she asked.

Sean sighed as he set the platter on the woman’s lap.

“Indeed. She told me to make sure you eat it—you’ll return to your health much sooner, she says, if you eat well and drink lots of tea sweetened with honey.”

“Oh, my, that’s very considerate of her.”

“Too considerate, if you ask His Illuminated Majesty of Time Eternal Sir Dhani With an H Harrison.”

Julian and Kyoko looked at each other, confused.

“Oh, forget it,” Sean grunted. “Just know that the company is not pleased my mother is showing favoritism in a time of scarcity.”

“I’m sure that’s doing wonders for our relations,” Julian sighed, ever-cynical.

“Oh,” the young man sighed, wistful as he grabbed hold of the bedpost. “It’s better than it could be.”

Dipping her spoon into her porridge, Kyoko asked, “Truly?”

“Sure,” Sean said plainly. “Macca’s finally straightened up, now that God told him to stop being such an imbecile. Says we all ought to sort ourselves out if we wish to make it out of here alive.”

“Is that a threat?” his half-sister asked.

The baker laughed dryly. 

“I didn’t take it as such. All he meant to say, I think, is that we’ll be signing our death warrants if we can’t so much as look at each other without fighting.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Now, Dhani, on the other hand…”

“Oh, dear,” Kyoko murmured. 

“He looked as though he would jump out of his own skin.”

The woman laughed. “Well, Sean, I think I’ll go with your interpretation.”

“Anyone with half a brain would.”

“Oh, it’s just good advice,” Kyoko insisted. “Macca’s very right about the whole thing, I think—getting along with one another. I think that’s exactly what we need right about now.”

“It’d be a whole lot easier if those blunderbusses weren’t so vain,” Sean muttered.

The woman frowned, and Julian braced himself for whatever came next.

“Now, don’t say that,” she said sadly. “They mean well, I’m sure of it.”

“I couldn’t care less what they mean,” the baker groaned. “At this point I hope the only place I ever see them is in Hell.”

“Sean!”

“It is the truth.”

“Well then perhaps you should be more open-minded.”

“Can’t you just eat your breakfast?” the young man cried, growing visibly upset. “Or have you really got to lecture me on which thoughts of mine are good and bad?”

“I can eat my breakfast  _ and  _ try as hard as I can to make you realize that you aren’t always right.”

“I never said I was infallible!” Sean raged. 

Kyoko drew in a deep breath in an attempt to keep her composure. 

She knew her brothers well, she thought. Well enough to know that Julian wouldn’t touch a conflict with a thirty foot long pole and would instead shut down at the very mention of it, turning into a nervous wreck in a number of seconds.

She knew, also, that Sean was very different. She was much like their mother, she thought, in the sense that he had trouble accepting other people’s ideas. He would rather have the last word than admit he was wrong, and he had almost a sort of penchant for debate. If he was the victor, at least.

What she had to keep in mind was that Sean was not the seasoned woman that she was. He was a young man, and a very,  _ very  _ tired one, at that, having been arrested, thrown in jail, met his father’s killer, thrown in the pillory, placed under isolation, gotten in an endless series of stressful arguments, and met some sort of supernatural, eight-faced mist maiden in only the past three days.

With a sigh, she decided to give it up.

“So,” she began.

The young man was in too much of a rage to listen to her, his spectacles nearly slipping off of his face as he pressed his hands to his hair, manic.

“Why is it so hard for you to sit and eat your breakfast like a normal person?” he cried, half angry and half on the verge of slipping into a nervous breakdown. “Why can you not just see things as things? Why has everything got to be some kind of deep implication of the mind’s desire?”

“Sean, I—”

“No!” he cried, backing away as his face flamed. “No, tell me! Why can I not give you your breakfast without you analyzing everything I do and say? You’re—My God, you’re like Mother, but worse!”

“I am her daughter,” the woman said, shrugging.

“Why are you so calm about this?” he screamed, causing Julian to cringe into himself. “Why does none of this bother you? Have you no sense of fear? Or are you simply too scatterbrained to realize we are all in very real danger?”

“I don’t think that’s it, Sean.”

“Nay, nay, for Christ’s sake, allow me to finish! Why are you so calm in the face of death?”

“Sean,” the woman said, serious. “I am  _ not going to die _ .”

“You might as well!” he answered, his voice cracking in such a way that it made Kyoko want to wrap him in a warm blanket and keep him there until he cheered up. “Because why on Earth would I ever have anything good happen to me?”

“Oh,” he continued. “Sean Ono Lennon having the time to build a relationship with  _ anyone other than his blasted mother _ ? God forbid!”

“Sean,” Julian finally said, intervening. “Calm down.”

“I’d like to see you calm,” the baker sneered. “Once you’ve lost everything in your life the second you thought you had something. See how that feels, why don’t you?”

“There isn’t any need to yell at her,” the older man continued, his mouth dry. “Not when she’s already ill.”

Kyoko opened her mouth to argue, but was quickly overshadowed by Sean, who with a revealingly frightened and uncharacteristically tone said, “For the love of God, Julian, I won’t see her die.”

“You’d be hard pressed to find anyone that would want to.”

The woman in question simply tilted her head, her eyes dragging back and forth across the room, moving from Sean to Julian and back as she thought to herself that she didn’t need her stepbrother to speak for her.

Sore as her throat may have been, she reasoned, she still could speak.

She could do nearly everything for herself, as long as she took caution not to overwork herself and worsen her condition.

She didn’t need anyone to tell other people how she felt.

“I just…” Sean stared at the ground, his face flushing in humiliation. “I  _ can’t  _ have anything else torn from me. Not after Father, the bird—Christ, my apprenticeship! In- in what world is that fair? To take everything a man has, if only to whittle down his spirit?”

“Well,” Julian sighed. “There’s your problem. Life isn’t fair, I’m afraid. Not to you, not to me, not to anyone.”

“But  _ why _ ?” the baker asked. “Why does it have to be so much harder for me than anyone else?”

The older man pursed his lips.

Drawing in a breath, Kyoko answered, “That’s a very good question…”

She looked up to Sean.

“I won’t deny it,” she said plainly. “Your quality of life is hindered by the circumstances you were born into. You didn’t choose to be born to Mother and John. You didn’t choose to be the witches’ son.”

She paused.

“One of the things I’ve spent my whole life learning—and I’ll pass this onto you so that you might learn this earlier than I—is that you are not in any control of how other people think of you. 

“Some people will never change, no matter what you do. They’re too stubborn in their beliefs, no matter how unfounded. 

“But that doesn’t mean you can’t be nice to them. You don’t have to try and change their minds, even. You can just do good things for other people for the sake thereof.”

“I will not extend my compassion to those that go about torturing their fellow men for the sake of a dying idea,” Sean said dryly.

“Well,” Kyoko sighed. “Then that is your opinion. I do not agree with it, mind you, but I respect it.”

“Have you ever read William Shakespeare?” the woman asked abruptly.

Sean drew back, a bit surprised by the question, but thankful for the distraction from his scalding rage. 

“I have,” he answered, distrusting.

“Then I trust you should recognize the words I speak: ‘The quality of mercy is not strained.’”

The young man nodded.

“ _ A Midsummer Night’s Dream _ ,” he stated.

Kyoko laughed. “ _ The Merchant of Venice _ , actually. It’s one of the last words of the play, as Portia pleads with Shylock not to take up his vengeance upon Antonio. It’s one of my favorite lines.”

“Ah,” Sean sighed, shaking his head. “My apologies.”

“You are forgiven,” the woman smiled.

He stared at his shoes, saying after a moment, “I suppose I should be leaving now, should I not?”  
  
“If you so wish it.”

Sean sighed. “I should. I’ve other things to do.”

“Then you may go,” Kyoko said, nodding. 

As the young man reached for the door, she added, “But Sean?”

“Yes?”

“Know one thing, I pray you—that I shall be perfectly well come tomorrow.”

“And if you are not?” he asked quietly.

“Then you may come and speak to me,” the woman said, smiling. “And that applies whether I am able to lift my head or not. You’re a very interesting young man, you know. I’m sure you’ve many interesting things to say.”

“Thank you,” Sean murmured, nodding.

“You’re more than welcome.”

As the door shut, Kyoko couldn’t help but think to herself that maybe that was what the mist maid had meant—that the quality of mercy is not strained.

She had spoken of forgiveness, of course, of empathy.

Surely, the woman thought, that was worth something.

And on the other side of the door, as he closed it behind him, Sean couldn’t help but think to himself that his half-sister was lying. 

There would be no talk between the two of them, there would be no breath with which she could speak.

Surely, after the death of his father, the death of the bird, and all those other times he had been let down, his feelings would—yet again—go unspared.

In three days, he thought, he would lose his sister, too.

_ 59 hours and 36 minutes. _


	54. Farewell For This Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Macca, George, and Ringo discuss coming events.

There wasn’t much to say downstairs on that same morning. 

Macca, George, and Ringo all sat in the dining room, stuck in the same seats they had eaten breakfast in.

It wasn’t that they couldn’t move, of course, or even that they had no will to. It was just that none of them knew what they would do if they were to leave.

For some time, then, Macca had gone on and on, speaking in the background of the seas of time, reality, science, and so forth. With illustrative and panicked explanations, he warned George of the danger of Ethelein’s return, stating that when their three day grace-period was to end, he would return in the most unbridled form, a soul with no vessel, powerful, more than ever, in its quest to possess.

He worried even himself with his explanation, his cheeks darkening as sweat dampened his brow. 

He talked himself in circles, reasoning with himself as he prepared for the worst possible scenario.

And then, throwing him off-guard, George placed a finger to his temple and asked a single question.

“If he has the souls of John, Iyera, and Rette… then does that mean they’ll come back as well?”

The siren felt his blood freeze.

His eyes blinking at the speed of sound, he rushed, “Well- they… aren’t  _ sje’inn’a’e _ .”

“But could their souls return to Earth?”

“I-”

Macca brought his hand to his mouth.

“Stars, I’ve no idea… he… he’s controlling them, I think, but—”

“But could they come back of their own volition?” George asked calmly, leaning back in his chair.

Macca looked up at him.

“If given the opportunity…” the old man continued. “Do you think they would take it?”

“The real question,” the siren sighed. “Is if given the opportunity to  _ leave _ , would they take it?”

Ringo hummed, only half-listening to the conversation.

George shook his head.

“Talk about heavy questions…”

“If given the choice to either return to Earth or leave permanently, what would they do? That’s what we have to think about here.”

“Well,” George began. “Let’s think logically. Ethelein killed himself, as did Rette… so it would make the most sense for them to leave, wouldn’t it?”

Ringo fiddled with his necklace, a frown forming on his face.

“Unless they regret it!” Macca added, his voice cracking. “My God, did you forget about the prophecy? He died trying to tell us about it!”

“Alright, alright, alright!” the old Sir Harrison squawked, defensive. “You’re right, I admit it!”

“I’m not trying to get you to  _ admit  _ anything,” the siren hissed. 

“Macca,” Ringo sighed. “You’ve got to calm down.”

The siren took hold of his friend’s hand, squeezing it tight for a moment before letting go.

“I know,” he whispered. “I’m just—I’m awfully stressed right now.”

“Maybe,” the cecaelia said. “But if there’s anyone here who can get this done, it’s you.”

“Oh, dear… you’ve too much faith in me.”

“No,” Ringo interrupted. “No, it’s true.”

George shook his head.

“Let’s figure this out—” the old man said, tapping his foot slowly against the wooden floor. “Ethelein would return without a doubt and try to tell us about the prophecy?”

“Presumably…” Macca sighed. “But that’s all based off of the assumption that that’s  _ all  _ he wants to say.”

The old man furrowed his brow.

“What else would there be?”

“The soul reading,” the siren reminded. “He went back into my and John’s soul reading and put himself in. That’s how he came across his vision. So what we’ve got to ask ourselves is—”

“Would he tell us that?” Ringo completed.

“Exactly.”

“The thing about that,” George began. “Is that we can’t say. Only he would know what he was or wasn’t going to tell us about the soul reading when he warned us of the prophecy.”

Ringo furrowed his brow, and in a low tone, asked, “Do you think he was ever planning on telling us at all?”

Macca’s face fell.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, stars… this whole thing, this whole theory we’ve developed as to what he wants from us… it’s all dependant on the idea that he was going to tell us about his prophecy.”

George placed his chin in his hand.

“But we don’t know that, you know? He didn’t die on the ship, he fell into the sea. And that other witch had to tell us about it, the one that gave us the  _ Index of Land-Dweller Customs _ .”

“I don’t see where you’re going with th…”

“All I mean,” the cecaelia sighed. “Is that we have no idea what he was going to do when he got to us. For that matter, we don’t even know where he was going. He could have been running away from all of us, for all we know, never wanting to talk to us ever again.”

“But…” Macca shook his head. “But that’s not the kind of person he was! Come on, Ringo, you know that!”

“Did you think he was the kind of person to put himself in someone else’s soul reading?”

The words hit the siren like a hammer to a nail, his heart dropping to the floor as he heard them. 

“Look…” Ringo went on. “By that point, we had no idea what he was like. I don’t think we’d seen him for months before that soul reading.”

George considered this.

“So who’s to say he didn’t have some kind of shift in character?”  
  
“One large enough that he would conveniently ignore warning us of John’s death?”

“It’s possib—”

“Ringo, he was in love with him!”

“Now,” George interrupted. “I wouldn’t say that; he was a siren…”

“You only think that because you’re a human,” Macca snapped. “And a dense one, at that. It was clear enough to me, you know. He wanted John for himself, There’s no way he would just… not tell him he was going to die.”  
  
“But,” Ringo countered. “Is it possible that he fashioned the prophecy as some kind of plot to win him over?”

At this both George and Macca frowned.

“He wouldn’t do that!” the siren repeated. “Stars, Ringo, get ahold of yourself!”

He shook his head.

“Do you  _ honestly  _ think that to get John for himself—while you and I both know he wasn’t the jealous type—he would have created an elaborate prophecy that accurately predicted how he died? And then kill himself with a potion? It doesn’t make any sense!”

“Fair,” the cecaelia sighed. “But know this much—he wasn’t the jealous type  _ to us _ . But he could have been in his own mind. He was never a man to reveal his emotions, you know. Maybe he was jealous. Maybe he just didn’t tell us.”

Macca frowned, opening his mouth to speak, but was overshadowed by George, who with a sigh said, “Let us not waste our time on speculation. What we know—nearly for certain—is that when Ethelein’s soul returns to Earth, he will without a doubt try and find a vessel for it.”

“That’s right,” the siren said after some hesitation.

“Now, what do we think John would do?”

Ringo tucked his chin into his hands, his tentacles turning to a violet gradient, deep in thought.

“It’s hard to say,” he said slowly. “I mean—he died so suddenly…”

“Without a chance to see his family again,” George reminded. “I think it probable that he should choose returning, then, as opposed to staying wherever he’s been forever.”

“He didn’t return to Julian,” Macca sighed. 

“But it could be different this time. You know that.”

The siren shrugged.

“I suppose so.”

“You think he’s going to come back?” Ringo asked quietly. 

George frowned. “I see no reason why he wouldn’t.”

“But…” He stared at the table. “Stars, are we going to be ready for that? Is  _ Yoko  _ going to be ready for that?”

“I don’t know if she’s got any other option,” Macca began, the words pulling at his heartstrings. “I tried to talk to her last night, if you recall, and to my surprise she did listen to me, but… It’s not going to be easy on her, seeing John again.”

He paused then before adding, “It’s not going to be easy on any of us.”

George raised his eyebrows, carving deep wrinkles in his forehead, and with a sigh asked, “What about Rette?”

Ringo held his necklace still, watching as his friends turned to him for an answer.

Flushing, he said, “I’m… not sure. You know, he killed himself because he didn’t want to be here anymore. So I don’t see any reason why he would come back now, if given the choice.”

“But did he not want to live at all,” Macca asked, his tone low. “Or just not in Agratsch?”

The octopus-man let out a sigh. 

“I can’t say for sure.”

“So he’s up for debate?” George asked, eager to move on.

Ringo hesitated.

“I suppose so,” he said slowly. “But… George.”

“Yes?”

“Listen… I know this is going to sound unrelated, but… I need you to talk to Dhani.”

The old man cocked an eyebrow.

“Has something happened?”

“I was speaking to him the other night,” the cecaelia explained. “I don’t think he’s well.”

George bit his cheek.

“Did he have another vision?” he asked dryly.

“Nay, although…”

He paused.

“Please—just speak to him. If not for my sake, then for Rette’s. For Dhani’s, even!”

“Ringo, you aren’t making any sense.”

“He doesn’t think you trust him anymore,” the cecaelia blurted. “He thinks you hate him! I’m not here to tell you how to father your son, but I have to tell you—you  _ cannot  _ afford to ignore what he’s going through.”

“What are you doing?” George asked, suddenly defensive.

“I’m trying to help,” Ringo said. “Because I greatly fear the consequences if I don’t.”

“Why… do you think I’m not taking his visions seriously? Honestly?” 

His face flushed as the unacknowledged ghost in the room materialized.

“Ringo, Olivia and I have taken him to every priest, church, and temple in Madras. I’ve laid awake for nights on end praying to anyone who would listen to me that he regains just a shred of his sanity, as has his mother. 

“I’ve—” He shut his eyes tight. “I have  _ tried  _ everything I could. So don’t you go telling me I haven’t.”

Ringo’s face fell.

“That means nothing if you don’t tell that to him!”

“Do you have any idea how hard this is for me?” the man cried. “Do you think this is something I wanted? Something I expected?”

“No,” the octopus-man quickly added. “No, believe me, I know full well it isn’t. But imagine how hard it is for him!”

“Gentlemen,” Macca interrupted.   
  
“Please.”

“I have! Christ, Ringo, of course I have!”

“Have you?” 

“Gentlemen,”

“For heaven’s sake, yes!”

“George,” the cecaelia sighed. “I’ll be honest with you: I don’t think you want to admit that he’s struggling.”

“Does anyone?” 

“No, they don’t. So for that I cannot blame you. But sooner or later, you have to accept it. You can do all you want, taking him to priests and churches and temples, but that’ll never do as much as it’s worth if you were just honest about the whole thing.”

The old man’s face fell.

“You have to realize, George—and I say this because I love you, because I don’t want you to go through half of what I have—if you aren’t honest about this, if you aren’t patient with Dhani, he’s going to go off and does something he regrets.

“I know it because I saw it happen to Rette. I was too optimistic. I thought if I could just make him happy somehow, living in Agratsch with no way out, he would be alright. And you know what, I hate to say it, but because of that, he’s dead.”

He paused to take in a breath, a respectful sort of silence to honor him who had passed on. 

“Trying to make someone happy is not a substitute for acknowledging their problems,” he concluded. “Please get that in your head before it’s too late.”

George, not used to such confrontation, particularly of such a sensitive nature, was unsure how to feel.

There grew a sick feeling in his stomach, an acidic, burning sort of sensation as in his subconscious formed the thought of standing at his son’s grave.

He shook his head, willing to change the subject.

“We’re done with this,” he murmured. “Let us move onto Iyera.”

Macca sighed.

“I hate to say it… but I think she’ll be coming back.”

He shook his head.

“Stars, I almost… I  _ want  _ her to, I think. But how twisted is that? Wishing my mate’s soul is taken by a  _ sje’inn’a’e _ , just to see her again...”

George leaned back in his chair.

“She knew she was going to die, did she not?”

“I suppose so,” Macca said, exhausted. 

“So she would have had a fair amount of time to wrap up loose ends, as they say?”

“If you want to consider suddenly losing fifty years of her life as ‘a fair amount of time to wrap up loose ends’, then sure.”

“Then she should have no reason to return,” George concluded.

“She had her own reasons for everything,” the siren lamented. “Her own way of looking at things, you know?”

“I don’t think she would return, though,” Ringo added. “Not if she knows how you feel about her.”

“But we don’t know what she knows… We don’t even know if they’ll have a  _ choice _ .”

He laughed pitifully.

“Nothing about soul binding in  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ is known, I’m afraid. There’s no precedent we can go off of to figure these kinds of things out. We just have to be prepared for anything.”

“And George,” he added, the memory of the previous night’s conversation flaring in his mind. “I understand you’re more optimistic than any of us, at least in regard to the idea of death, but you don’t have to go shouting it at everyone.”

“I don’t believe I do,” the man responded, confused.

“Then you aren’t very self-aware.”   
“Macca, come on. Look, I’m sorry I don’t want to wallow in my own pity. I’m sorry I don’t want anyone to lose their heads over me when I die. Is that good enough for you?”

“I suppose.”

“Heavens, if you ask me, I’m not an optimist. You’re just a pessimist.”

“Death is not something I take lightly,” the siren sighed. “And quite frankly, I think that’s how it should be.”

“It’s not that I take it lightly,” George refuted. “It’s that I’m interested in what lies ahead of me in the next life. Believe me, I’m as sad as anyone to have to go, but the key difference between myself and others is that I’m not afraid. It’s not the end for me, I think. It’s just another beginning.”

“You’re not at all concerned about your family?” Macca asked. “Your friends? How they’re going to miss you?”

“Well, no, it’s n—”

“That’s just selfish!”

“Come on, now, Macca,” Ringo pleaded. “You said it yourself—we’ve no time anymore to bicker.”

The siren crossed his arms, shaking his head as he said, “You’re right…”

“I’m perfectly worried about my family,” George continued. “Dhani, in particular. I think he’s going to break down and lose his mind when I die. But I don’t think it’s so wrong of me to want them not to mourn me for years on end.

“It’s not like John or Ethelein or Rette’s death—that was so sudden, there was really no choice but timeless mourning. But I know what’s going to happen to me. I’ve known it for years now.

“And with all that time I’ve had, I’ve realized that there isn’t as much to be afraid of as people think. It’s a great unknown, I’ll give you that, but it’s one I look forward to.

“How _exciting_ is that?” he asked with genuine glee. “To dive into the unknown, to live a whole life, full of love and adventure and tragedy, and then to start over? To play the game with new pieces?

“It’s not that I think I’ve lived a bad life—quite the opposite, truly. I’ve been given opportunities I would never trade. Even those tragedies—John’s death, my marriage to Patricia, the disbandment of the ship… I wouldn’t be half the man I was without them. 

“I don’t know if given the choice, I would want them to happen again, but they’re a part of who I am now. They taught me things I don’t think I could have learned any other way.”

For a moment, the mermen sat in silence, staring at either the old man, as was Ringo’s case, or at their own claws, as was Macca’s.

“That’s a very good way to look at it,” Ringo said after a pause.

The siren simply shook his head, a sick, twisted sorrow rising in his throat.

George didn’t understand what grief could do to a person.

He sounded just like Iyera.

Later that evening, after supper, Dhani found himself standing by his lonesome in the kitchen, fondling the silver in his hands.

There was something so comforting, he thought, in its design. 

And while he had never seen a silver pendant attached to a piece of clay before, he was surprised to find himself not in total opposition of the idea.

It was quite beautiful, really.

He had made good that evening, choosing to spend his time alone with the necklace.

Still, he was unaware of why exactly he had taken it.

Perhaps, he thought, it was a simple matter of it being there and him wanting things.

But that was so unlike him. He was not some common beggar on the streets of Dublin, he was the grandson of the Earl of Liverpool, a boy born into a wealthy and aristocratic family in Madras.

Something had simply come over him, he recalled, seeing the necklace. They way it shined in the light, he supposed, made him grow overcome with emotion.

It was something that felt like it was his, he thought. 

But how strange was that? 

He knew it was not his, and yet in the same respect it was. 

It was as though someone else had taken over his very mind, if only for that brief moment, and convinced him that taking the jewelry was the most natural course of action, comparable to waking up in the morning or going to bed at night.

And strangely enough, Dhani found that he was alright with that.

Holding the necklace, he found that for the first time in many days, he felt very secure.

Until the cecaelia burst into the room, that is.

At the creak of the door, Dhani turned around quickly. 

Ringo seemed exacerbated, his tentacles a worrisome green, his brow furrowed down to his chin.

“Dhani,” he began.

The young man did not answer.

“Dhani, have you seen my necklace? I lost it sometime after showing it to your father—”

The octopus-man stopped dead in his tracks, then, and with a grim realization, Dhani drew back. 

“My necklace…” the cecaelia breathed. “Why have you—”

Dhani took a rushed step back, knocking into one of the kitchen chairs as he did so. 

“Nay,” he said quickly, surprised by his denial. “Nay, it was not I.”

Fear, much to his surprise and astonishment, suddenly filled every crevice of his body as the octopus-man turned his gaze to the silver, his face flaming as his mind turned itself over to its primal urge—to protect what was its own.

“You will not take it,” he hissed, taken aback by the sheer anger in his tone. 

Ringo blinked a couple of times, just as surprised as the young man.

“Dhani,” he said slowly. “It’s mine.”

“No, it isn’t!”

The octopus man began on his way towards him, and it was then that the standoff began.

He took a step forward.

“That necklace was given to me by my mate.”

Dhani took a step back.

“It is  _ mine _ .”

Ringo’s face flushed blue in anger.

“It is  _ not _ .”

Dhani extended his hand backwards, grabbing onto the table he was quickly backing into.

“I cannot give it to you.”

Ringo’s tentacles grew turquoise.

“And why not?”

The young man did not take his eyes off of the cecaelia.

“I- I’m not sure,” he admitted. “But I know you cannot take it.”

At this the octopus-man’s speed increased twofold, his hands reaching for Dhani’s as he sighed, “Dhani, come on.”   
  
“No!” the young man shrieked, swatting him away. “No, get back!”

“Dhani!”

With a quick thrust of his foot, the young Sir Harrison kicked Ringo in the tentacles, defensive, as always, and backing himself into the closed parlor door as he cried, “It is rightfully mine!”   


“Dhani,” the octopus-man winced. “What in the stars has gotten into you?”

With mounting horror, the young man realized he had no answer.

He knew not what force was driving him to so fiercely protect the necklace, nor did he know why he had grown so desperate to keep himself safe.

He did know one thing, however, and that was that he had to.

Screaming bloody murder at the octopus-man, who in return, screamed at him, a look of grave concern on his face, Dhani did not notice the third, completely separate man standing behind him until he backed right into him.

Yelping at the sensation, he turned around to find one very angry George with his hands on his hips.

“Dhani Harrison,” he began. “You had better have a very good reason for—”

“He’s trying to take it from me!” Dhani raved. “He is trying to take what is rightfully mine!”

George turned to Ringo, who with great frustration explained, “That necklace was given to me by Rette! And now he thinks he owns it!”

“Dhani,” the old man chastised. 

The young man shook his head.

“No,” he said, frantic. “No, I will not give it back! I will not give anything back that is rightfully mine! Not to the likes of  _ you _ !”

With growing anger, George grunted, “Dhani, that is  _ more  _ than enough.” 

“I will have nothing stolen from me!” Dhani shouted, beginning to frighten himself. 

Without warning, then, his father grabbed onto his arm, causing the young man to both flinch and struggle until George was able to subdue the arm that held the necklace.

Dhani’s chest heaved as he watched his precious medallion move from hand to hand, Ringo shaking his head in disappointment all the way.

“Apologize to him,” George demanded.

“I will not apologize to thieves.”

Pressing down harder on the young man’s arms, George cried, “There is no  _ thief  _ here but you! Now for God’s sake, you tell him you’re sorry! That was a gift to him from his dead mate!”

“George,” Ringo said quietly. “There really isn’t any need to—”

“Yes, there is,” the old man interrupted. “He’s done wrong against you, and now he shall apologize.”

The cecaelia’s eyebrows raised, and for a split second, he looked deep into his friend’s eyes, searching his mind. He begged him, with his pupils, to do something, to do  _ anything  _ that would open a dialogue between the father and the son.

Pulling himself free from his father, Dhani grumbled, “I apologize.”  
  
“For what?” George asked dryly.

Dhani bit the inside of his cheek.

“For taking his necklace,” he said. 

George sighed.

“Very good.”

Placing his necklace back around his neck, staring not at he who had grieved him, but at his father, Ringo added, “You are forgiven, Dhani.”

“Thank you,” the old man said, coughing into his handkerchief.

Dhani turned to place a hand on his father’s arm, but was more than disheartened to find the man push him away.

“Come now,” he instructed. “We ought to speak.”  
  
At this, Ringo was relieved.

In hindsight, however, he should have been very afraid.

For as the father and son reached their bedchamber, as soon as the door had closed, George’s voice lifted a half on octave, cracking and breaking with anger as he cried, “What in God’s name was that?”

Dhani frowned, never having seen his usually patient father so upset with him.

“I—”

“You what?” the old man snarled. “You stole Ringo’s necklace and then tried to claim it was yours? What for? Why… My God, why would you ever—”   
  
“Father…”

His face growing hard as stone, George shook his head.

He held out his hand, his back facing Dhani. And then, taking a deep breath, pinching to the crook of his eyebrows, he said those words that set off the gunpowder, confirming what the young man had known all along, giving him the prefect avenue to Hell.

“If I would have known in Madras what I know now,” George said, barely audible. “That you would spend your days here not recovering from your visions, not growing to understand the world as it is, but instead worsening, growing inconsolable at the sound of a breaking—in the company of my old friends, nonetheless—stealing from those I call my companions, speaking for days on end of witchcraft and other nonsensical things,

“I never would have brought you here.”

Dhani felt his stomach sink to the pitfalls of Hell.

“Father—”

George let out a sharp sigh, if only to keep himself from crying.

“I’ve made a grave mistake,” he muttered.

Dhani flushed, opening his mouth to speak before his father continued, “You stay in here. I’m going downstairs.”  
  
With the creak of the door, the young man’s entire world had turned upside down.

His chest heaved, still flaring with ire.

His father didn’t understand just how terrible being in New York would turn out to be for them. 

Did he honestly think Dhani wanted to be there?

The young man kicked at his trunk, lying unmoving and upright on the ground, out of sheer frustration. 

He did not  _ want  _ to be in that city. He did not  _ want  _ to be hunted for sport by that blasted witch. 

What he wanted, more than anything in his life, was to return to Madras; to return to his old life, before the voyage, before the stabbing, before everything.

In only a month, his life had gone from good to bad to worse. 

When he had arrived, he thought, his father had cared for him. When he had arrived, he was not a bastard. 

When he had arrived, the only things he had to worry about were his seasickness and whether or not those figures from his father’s stories would like him.

And now, at nearly the end of the year, he was facing the deaths of himself and his father.

Tar dripping down the walls, it hit him—the bird was dead. It was as good as gone, having impaled itself on Kyoko’s knife the night prior, and now, the only witch he had to worry about was Sean. 

It would be in three days’ time, the demon had said, that he would kill them. 

Dhani had three days until his soul was harvested.

Three days until the warlock turned to the victor, he thought. 

His time was slowly but surely running out.

His head filling with the thick black liquid, he reached into his trunk.

Without Sean, his father never would have been stabbed.

Without Sean, he never would have come to New York.

Without Sean, he had a chance to return to Madras a living man.

His father had done all he could, he thought with great sorrow, to teach him to be an upstanding man. He had taught him the values of God, the worth of peace, the idea of karma.

But what was any of that worth, he wondered, when his father no longer cared for him?

There was nothing more he could do to disappoint him.

Shaking his head, Dhani cast away the notion.

His father might not have cared for what he did, but God would.

He would watch over him, he thought. He would see everything he did. He would know his every thought, every desire of his mind.

Dhani could run from George all he wanted, but there was nowhere in the universe he could run from his holy creator’s wrath.

He had said it himself the night before, those who kill would, in due time, be killed themself. 

They would, in the act of murder, inflict an equal punishment upon themself, be that murder, strife, famine, theft.

Did he truly want to face that, he wondered, and in the same respect, how did the karmic punishment differ when the murder was justified?

His heart aching, he realized what he had to do.

If only to save his father, he and Sean would both have to die.

When the warlock was dead, he thought, he would inflict God’s wrath upon himself, sacrificing his soul for his father’s, and sparing those remaining in the company from any greater bloodshed.

It was a noble idea, he reasoned, holding the book to the light—offering one’s blood in place of that from seven people.

It was something Jean Paul LeFaux would be awfully proud of.    
  


_ PHILOMATHES  _

_ Well, we have made this conference to last as long as leisure would permit: And to conclude, then, since I am to take my leave of you, I pray God to purge this Country of these devilish practices: for they were never so rife in these parts as they are now. _

_ EPISTEMON _

_ I pray God that it be, too. But the causes are our manifest that makes them to be so rife. For the great wickedness of the people on the one part procures this horrible defection, whereby God justly punishes sin by a greater iniquity. And on the other part, the consummation of the world and our deliverance drawing near makes Satan to rage the more in his instruments, knowing his kingdom to be so near an end.  _

With shallow breaths, Dhani loaded the golden berries into his jacket pocket, along with a single bottle of wine from his father’s trunk.

_ And so, farewell for this time.  _

The clock struck nine.

But by the time it struck twelve, he knew that himself and Sean Ono Lennon would be dead.

_ 47 hours and 27 minutes. _


	55. Down the Hundred-Mile Well

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dhani prepares two glasses of wine.

It was not until quarter to eleven, Dhani noticed, that the kitchen cleared.

Madam Lennon had been in there for quite a while making tea—which he could only presume was for her sick daughter—and, quite frustratingly, the water had taken ages to boil.

The young man had placed it at about ten minutes, which came as a surprise to him, considering how long it felt.

Then again, he thought with a sigh, he supposed seconds ticked by slower with wine in his pocket, poison berries in his coat, and murder on his mind.

Murder, he mused.

It was a strange word, a harsh one, perhaps not fully apt to describe what he was going to do.

Murder meant taking the life of another man unjustly—stabbing him, shooting him, hanging him from a noose for petty, frivolous things.

Murder did not require as much careful thought and deliberation as his own crime.

He, instead, had thought for hours on his plan, resolving over the course of days that he had no choice but to kill the warlock, taking well into account his own sins.

He would be justified in doing so, he thought. He had God’s blessing, at least in his own mind. But even if he didn’t, he would still be sparing the remainder of the company. 

And how could that be a bad thing?

It was true, he thought fleetingly, that he too would have to die for his sins. 

But he would die for the greater good, for a common cause. 

And more importantly, Sean Ono Lennon would die as well, and with him, any hope he may have had to kill his family and their friends.

Strolling silently around the corner, entering from the dining room, the young man entered into the kitchen and was surprised to find on the table a single asymmetrically carved wooden knife.

Sean was in the parlor, a wistful, lilting tune arising from his fingers on the harpsichord.

George was upstairs, fast asleep in bed.

Ringo, Macca, and Julian had all gathered some time ago in Kyoko’s room, inviting Dhani along with them to visit the girl.

And Yoko, having prepared a good pot of tea, had gone to meet them.

It was just Dhani and the knife now.

And glory, how he was transfixed by the sight. It was as though someone had set it there just for him, for whatever purposes he needed it. 

He reached out to it, figuring he could use it on the warlock in the event his poison was not strong enough to kill him, but with a quick realization, drew his hand back.

What was he doing, he wondered, the weight of the world crushing his shoulders. 

If he were to take the knife and stab Sean, then he would be no better than that man who had stabbed his father. 

He knew that if he were to use it, then he would not see the dying warlock beneath his knee—he would picture his father.

And just the thought of that nearly sent him into another one of his visions.

He could stomach poisoning the warlock, but stabbing him was unthinkable.

If the berries were of the right toxicity, he reassured himself, than Sean’s death would be quick and as painless as possible.

As he pulled two wine glasses from the cabinet, he tried his best not to think about the act he would soon find himself committing.

He could not, under any circumstances, allow the warlock to win his mind at the very end of the war. 

What he had to keep in mind was that Sean was not truly that man just like him.

He was not a man born unto suspected witches, forced into a cruel world in the same way Dhani was.

He was not just a boy who searched for meaning in his life, a decisive follower of John Locke. 

He was a half-breed.

He was a magician.

He was a no-good know-it-all.

He was everything Dhani could never let himself be, and for that, and for threatening his life, the baker had to die.

The young Sir Harrison wasted no time in placing two of the golden berries in the glasses, using a large spoon to cut the third into two, and also to crush the fruits into pulp.

As he quickly discovered, however, causing beads of sweat to begin forming above his brow, when crushed, the berries emitted a very pungent, very unpleasant odor. 

Moving with all the speed of a hare, taking a quick glance at the parlor door to make sure his prey was not growing suspicious, Dhani reached into his jacket and pulled out the wine.

It was his father’s good bottle—a special one he had brought with him specifically for dinner on Christmas Day.

But it had better uses by then, the young man thought to himself. 

Little to his father’s knowledge, the wine he had brought from Madras was about to save him.

But in the same respect, a voice deep in the echoes of Dhani’s mind reminded him, it would kill his son. 

Surely, he thought for a fleeting second, his father would mourn him.

Losing his only son when he had just barely begun to live—how on Earth could any man bear such a pain?

Oh, Dhani thought, it mattered about as much as a grain of sand by that time.

His father was not even afraid of his own death.

Why should he have feared his son’s?

Pouring the wine over the thick mess of pulp, flesh, and seeds, Dhani used the spoon to stir his concoction.

It was too viscous to pass as wine, he thought.

The ratio of fruit to alcohol was skewed—which, in part, served to favor the young man, allotting him a quick death by poison.

But in the same regard, it increased the odds the warlock would quickly unravel his plot, tossing the wine aside almost immediately so as to clear space to seek his revenge.

Now unmistakably breaking a sweat, Dhani tossed open the cabinet doors.

There had to be a larger glass, he thought to himself, at least one…

Oh, he smiled, it was his lucky day.

There were two.

After redistributing his solution, remixing and reevaluating it, the young Sir Harrison realized that he was, at long last, fully ready to do what he had to—at least in a physical sense.

In a more abstract sort of analysis, he wasn’t sure whether he’d be able to kill.

His mind wandered a moment, wondering—and more accurately, feeling as though it should have wondered—what it would be like to die.

What would it feel like, he thought, to close his eyes for a split second, and then never open them again?

What if, when he crossed the Rubicon at last, he was not met with anything?

Was he truly wishing to ride that pale horse of death into its eternal void?   
It was strange, he thought.

Even in the hour of his death, he could not picture it.

As Sean’s fingers graced the upper shelf of the harpsichord, tracing the same pattern (from a hooked pair of F#’s to an E to a D to a C#, and then returning to end on D) for what felt like the millionth time, he heard the kitchen door creak.

Not taking his hands off of the ivory, he looked up, surprised to see Dhani standing in the doorway, two tall glasses of wine in his hands.

“Is there something you need?” the baker asked dryly, his eyes on the alcohol.

The young Sir Harrison took in a deep breath, and raising his chin ever so slightly, replied, “I heard you playing the harpsichord, and considering you and I are the only two down here, I supposed we might like to fix ourselves some wine.”

He held out his left hand, extending the poison to the warlock.

“Why don’t you have some?”

For a moment, Sean simply stared at the beverage, and in the tension of it all, Dhani began to wonder whether he was truly as clever as he made himself out to be.

It didn’t seem right to take wine from the man, Sean thought, considering he was so irrationally loathing of the baker.

Then again, wine was wine, and he was on the edge of losing his sanity.

Surpassing all odds, and filling the young Sir Harrison with an indescribable mix of glee and anxiety, Sean reached for the wine.

“Oh,” he said plainly, staring into the maroon mix. “That was very kind of you to do.”

A smile spread across Dhani’s face like butter across bread as he sat himself down in the chair opposite Sean.

“Let us drink,” he said, his hand shaking as he raised his glass.

Sean nodded.

“Indeed.”

The arms of the clock ticked another minute by, and as they did so, Dhani watched the warlock expectantly.

With a slow, deliberate motion, he drew the glass to his mouth, allowing his eyes to close for but a single moment as he thought to himself how nice it would be, indulging himself in wine at what seemed to him to be the very end of the world.

Nearly spilling his own drink, Dhani did the same.

And then, just as the baker parted his lips to taste the wine, he drew in a breath.

Exhaling quickly, mere milliseconds before he was to swallow the beverage, his nose registered a very peculiar smell.

It was a familiar one, he thought to himself, reminiscent of an afternoon in the woods, almost.

It smelled like those days he used to spend with his father in what had become his burial site, when the sun used to shine down in summer and birds could be heard calling in the canopy above.

It smelled like snow, like the cold hand of winter wrapping itself around the city’s neck.

It smelled like evenings spent chopping firewood in what little light there was left.

It smelled, Sean realized, turning his blood into bricks, like horsenettle. 

By the time the baker shut the lid to the harpsichord, placing his glass on top of it with the speed of a horse at the crack of its master’s whip, Dhani had already swallowed the first drop.

“No,” Sean cried. “No, Dhani, don’t! It’s been poisoned!”

The young Sir Harrison nearly dropped his wine, his face paling to the shade of paper.

His lips shook, his body shrinking back in his chair, fingers still straddling the glass’s neck.

“Put it down, for Christ’s sake! We’ve been poisoned!”

Dhani had no response.

Seeing his face, the pieces of the puzzle all came together in Sean’s mind.

He took a grave step back, his curled body slamming into the harpsichord.

“You…”

Dhani stood up very slowly, cursing himself for not having the foresight to bring that wooden knife with him.

The baker’s tone was beyond dire as he whispered, “You did this, didn’t you?”

“I—”

The young man swallowed, his mind swelling under the heat of unbearable pressure.

He was damned either way, he realized.

If he told Sean he had, then he would be killed on the spot.

But if he denied it, then he would be killed with his father, with the rest of the company, when the warlock executed his final plan.

No matter what he did or where he ran, he would end up six feet in the ground.

His eyes widened then.

Unless…

“Tell me,” Sean repeated, his breaths shakier.

Leaping into action, Dhani flung himself at the baker, grabbing him forcefully by the arm with one hand, and using the other to cover his mouth.

Sean kicked and raged, even trying several times to bite the young man, but was ultimately subdued, Dhani knocking him into the kitchen doorway.

Although he put up a good fight, the young Sir Harrison was quite surprised to find that the warlock did not struggle so much.

Still with a firm hold on his arm, Dhani dragged half of his body into the kitchen, weathering his fair share of enraged kicks to the shins as he neared the table.

Swallowing, for he knew the feat he was to attempt would not in any sense of the word be an easy or pleasant one, the young man removed, for a second, his hand from the young man’s bicep.

Sean, with the common sense of any man in such a situation, used the opportunity to pull himself free from the madman.

Sprinting towards the parlor door, thinking he might have had a chance to live if he was just able to make it out into the foyer, Sean shuddered at the sound of the kitchen door closing.

He opened his mouth to scream, to shout, to call out for his mother or Julian—anyone who would hear him, really—but to his horror, after a single beat of a strangled scream, he felt an arm straddling his shoulder, a prick on the front of his neck, just above his Adam’s apple. 

“If you cry out,” Dhani muttered, manic and shaking about as much as the young man at the other end of his knife. “If you leave… If you so much as  _ think  _ about leaving, you  _ half-breed _ , then know that I shall cut your head from your blasted body.”

Sean froze.

Turning to his captor, he whispered, “What in God’s name do you want from me?”

With a slow hand, the young Sir Harrison pushed the parlor door closed.

And with the other, he very gently removed the tip of the knife from Sean’s throat.

“I want you to drink the wine,” he said. “Drink it, and so shall I.”

“I don’t understa—”

Dhani’s chest heaved.

“You thought no one would catch on,” he murmured, not daring to take his eyes off of the warlock. “You thought no one in the company would be clever enough to figure out your little plot.”

“My w—”

“But you thought wrong, Mister Lennon! In fact, you’ve made a grave mistake. For in spite of your assumptions, in spite of what you may have thought before, not everyone is so dense! 

“Yes, indeed,” the madman raved. “ _Some of us_ are very reasonably minded, so keen to observe our surroundings that it is impossible for us to be duped!”

The warlock’s face contorted.

“And so is the situation you find yourself in, Mister Lennon! Your familiar is dead, your sister is dying, and your plan is unraveling before your very eyes!”

“ _ What plan _ ?” the baker begged.

“Don’t act as though you don’t know!” Dhani flared. “You thought you could rope us all here, hold us hostage with your bird… and for what? Just to kill us?

“I’ll give you this—you’re much smarter than you look. You’re a clever man, in the same regard as myself, I say! But with one fatal flaw. You assumed no one else was as clever as—or for that matter,  _ more clever  _ than you!”   
  
He shook his head.

“And so here we are: a Madras Madman and a Manhattan Magician. Each one of the same wit as the other, each one with the same fervor, be it for divine justice or satanic bloodlust.

“We can end this tonight, Sean. If we just drank the wine, we would free ourselves from this madness!”

Frightened out of his wits, the baker took a step back, flinching as he felt the younger man’s hand wrap like a snake around his wrist.

“I will give you two choices,” the young Sir Harrison continued, moving towards the baker, knife still in hand. “Either you drink the wine, freeing this company from whatever horrible fate you have mind, casting your soul into the Hell it belongs,”

Sean’s pupils dilated to the size of sand-grains.

“From which point, I shall do the same, releasing myself from my visions, from my insanity… confident, for the only time in my life, in the knowledge that I have pleased God,

“Or you leave me no choice but to stab you to death in this parlor.”

The baker felt as though the world around him was slipping away. He was falling, he thought, down a hundred-mile well into an unknowable darkness, a state of fear given a form, a voice, a name.

And its name was death.

At the bottom of the well sat a pool of blood, the blood of martyred men and sinners alike, and swimming inside were the decaying corpses of those gone too soon, their anguished voices calling out the names of the only two living men in the void.

It was just him and Dhani, he thought, sinking into the bloodshed.

But in his eyes, in the eyes of him who he knew would take the life he had hardly lived for himself, he saw someone else.

He saw a man sitting in a jail cell, his eyes wild, every part of him disheveled as he handed the baker a small black book.

About ready to collapse on the floor, if not from his fear, then from his trembling, Sean managed to croak out, “Dhani, don’t do it.”  
  
The young Sir Harrison was not pleased with the opposition he was faced with, recognizing, if only in his subconscious, that the warlock sounded uncomfortably similar to that voice in his head.

With a shaking head, he answered, “My choice is made, Mister Lennon. Now, it’s time for you to make yours.”

“No,” the baker pleaded. “Dhani, was it not you who told me just yesterday that those who kill—”

“I spoke only of those unjust killers, those men unvindicated by the ends by which their means had accomplished. But  _ I  _ am not among such beasts, no.... 

“Where there are witches slain in the name of God,” he uttered. “There is only divine justice.”

“I could say the same about you! That  _ you  _ were born a witch!” Sean countered. “Is it not your father who is a pagan? Was it not you who was born out of wedlock?”

“It was not  _ I  _ who set out to threaten the lives of this company!” Dhani sneered. “Bastard I may be, I am no warlock!”

Moving quickly towards the man, causing him to scramble back into the harpsichord as though his life was wholly and utterly dependant on it, Dhani continued, his voice raising to a level high enough to attract potential suspicion:

“Listen to me when I say this, Mister Lennon, and listen well—you are not a  _ quarter  _ of a man that I am.”   
Drawing near to the warlock’s face, he concluded, “I am  _ nothing  _ like you.”

Tears streaming (against his will) along the length of his face, Sean simply responded, “Sir Harrison.”

“ _ What?! _ ”

Staring his murderer in the eyes, he uttered, “Look beneath your feet.”

Dhani gripped the knife in his hands.

“I will do no such thing!” he raged. 

“Sir Harrison, I shall take no malice against you. With that, I beg you, turn to look beneath your feet!”

“And why should I?”

In a low tone, his heart beating as fast as a lamb’s before it was crushed in the jaws of a wolf, Sean whispered, “The rug’s slipped…”

Dhani squinted, his face portraying nothing but unbridled hate, and for an elongated second, the baker prepared for his death.

He could almost feel, prematurely, the tip of Julian’s poorly- carved knife digging into his skin, he could hear the banshee screech of his mother as she discovered his body in the parlor.

But then, Dhani directed his gaze to the rug.

He took a large step back, his eyes wide in astonished terror, and with that same fear, the knife slipped from his hand.

In the scramble to reach the end of the room, their feet moving like fire ripping through the trees, the men had undone a corner of the parlor rug, pushing it back just enough that the floor was visible.

And on the floor, glaring at them somehow, in spite of its blindness, laid a large, patchy bloodstain. 

It had seeped deep into the grain of the wood, its hue as dark as the tar in Dhani’s mind, and without a mouth with which to speak, warned him of the consequences of his actions.

“Please...” Sean whispered, his hands clenching the harpsichord, not breaking eye contact with the young man in front of him. “Do not spill the blood that has been spilled in this room a second time.”

Dhani shook his head, realizing, for the first time, the weight of his thoughts.

He was no  _ witchfinder _ , he thought, the poison seeping into his brain. 

He was no prophet.

He was no divine harbinger of God’s justice.

He was no seraphim.

He was—undoubtedly—a murderer.

Time seemed to move backwards, the gears of the clock jamming and rewinding as he inched towards the chair, his britches feeling the heat of the hearth.

When he at last reached his chair, he collapsed, his muscles and mind equally and utterly exhausted.

And then, his vision blurring, his hearing disintegrating as the sound of a sharp, piercing note filled the room, with unmovable determination, he reached for his glass and downed the poison inside.

  
_ 44 hours and 46 minutes. _


	56. The Side of Reason (and Irrationality)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which George is rudely awoken.

George awoke with a start, dazed out of his mind as the horrible sound of screeching filled his bedchamber.

Before he was even able to comprehend the scene around him, he found Sean standing by his side, his face struck with panic, his mouth moving at the speed of a hawk diving down onto the ground as he shouted,

“My God, Sir Harrison! Dhani’s poisoned himself!”

_ God… Sir Harrison… Dhani… _

The words were too quick for him, he thought, rubbing his eyes as a mumbled exclamation of confusion spilled from his mouth.

Sean grabbed ahold of his shoulders, frantic, and in a louder, almost shouting voice, cried, “Dhani’s poisoned himself, for Christ’s sake! Get your bloody arse down to the parlor!”

At the combination of  _ Dhani  _ and  _ poison _ , the old man’s eyes went wide.

He hardly had time to think as the baker grabbed onto his hand and with nearly sprinting steps ran downstairs.

The rest of the company was behind them, it seemed, their faces betraying just as much confusion and shock as Sir Harrison’s.

“What happened?” he asked quickly, dizzy from the speed at which he moved.

Sean gripped tightly onto his stomach as his feet touched the floor of the foyer.

Shaking his head, he did not answer the question, but moved instead towards Julian.

“Give me your knife,” he demanded.

The longshoreman furrowed his brow.

“God, Julian! There isn’t any time! Just give me the knife!”  
  
Julian flinched as he offered his apologies.

Then, drawing in a deep breath, the likes of which he knew would never be able to satisfy his burning lungs, Sean pushed open the parlor door.

George walked in apprehensive.

Inside, he saw with terror-struck awe, Dhani sat twisted into an inhumane shape in front of the harpsichord.

His brow was pressed nearly to the ground, his hair obscuring his face as he gazed at the empty glass at his side.

His son was dying, he thought, feeling as though he was about to faint.

The son he had seen through infancy up until that very evening, telling him tales of the sea, educating him in French and Latin, and comforting him in those unbearably hot Indian summers, was lying on the floor, motionless, as though he was some kind of sick cat.

George was too shocked to speak.

“Good Lord,” Sean groaned, “You drank the other glass, as well? What in God’s name is wr—”

“Leave me be!” the young man screeched, his face redder than wine. “All of you, get out of here!”

“Dhani,” George gasped. “What have you done?”

Dhani’s head snapped up to face his father, and with watering eyes, he opened his mouth to speak, horrified to find that he could not force out a single word.

How could he possibly stand before his father, he thought, and admit to him what he was?

“He tried to kill me,” Sean snarled. “He came in here with two glasses of wine poisoned with horsenettle, and when I refused to drink it, he tried to stab me.”

The young Sir Harrison turned away from the baker’s unwavering gaze.

“Now it seems that he’s drunk both glasses for himself.”

George felt the world stop spinning.

Ringo, placing a hand over his mouth, turned to him, in that moment, and could not help but think that he had been right.

The young man had, indeed, taken drastic action against himself and the company.

“Dhani…” the old man murmured.

“ _ Leave _ ,” Dhani hissed. “In God’s name, Father, leave me here to die like a man!”

“No,” Sir Harrison said, shaking his head as he moved towards the young man. “Dhani, I shall do no such thing.”

The dying boy let out a cry, his voice wavering and his breathing staggered as he asked, “And why not?”

“Because you are my son,” George said, voice cracking. “You were born of my very flesh and blood, and for heaven’s sake, I won’t see you die.”

“It is what is right,” Dhani weeped. “It was I who sought to kill Mister Lennon, and so shall I face the punishment for it.”

“No, Dhani, that isn’t true!”

“But it is! Look at me, Father! Look at what I’ve become!”

He wiped at his eyes.

“I’m a madman! These visions… these thoughts of murder… this  _ curse  _ I have… I cannot live with it!”

George opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, his son concluded, “I won’t argue with you, Father. You’re too late, anyhow.”

Tears welling in his eyes, Sir Harrison’s face went white.

“No,” he insisted, his voice unflinchingly determined. “No, it is not too late.”

Yoko ran her hand through her hair.

“Yes, it is,” Dhani argued.

“ _ No _ .”

“Father,” the young man choked. “I’ve already drunk the wine.”

“ _ No, you haven’t _ .” he said, his face aging a hundred years in half a second.

Staring at the scene, Sean felt no remorse.

Sir Harrison was in denial, sure, and he was moments away from losing his son—but the baker’s pity did not extend so far to killers.

He had learned that lesson a very long time ago.

Turning to his side, Dhani sighed, “Let me be, Father, and tell Mother that I shall see her soon.”

“I will not,” George said, jaw clenched.

Stepping into the bedlam, Yoko interrupted, “What can I do?”

“Do nothing, Madam Lennon,” Dhani instructed. “What you ought to do is leave me here and let me die in peace.”

George hushed his son.

Turning to his captain, more vulnerable than she had ever seen him, in a very serious tone, he asked, “What do you know of horsenettle?”

Handing her old crewmate a blanket, she answered, “It’s a plant that grows wild in the woods. It’s poisonous, of course, berries and all. They smell something terrible when crushed, especially at this time of year.”

“Is there any cure?” George asked, desperate.

The widow  rushed into the kitchen, dumping all that remained of her day’s water supply into a pot, which she then promptly set upon the hearth.

“How much did you eat?” she asked the young man.

“I’m not telling you that,” Dhani grunted.

“ _ Tell her _ ,” his father insisted.

Trying his best to sit up, purposely avoiding Sean and his mother’s gaze, the young man muttered, “Three of the berries…”

“Is that bad?” George asked, barely audible.

The woman pursed her lips. “I’m not sure. All I know about it is that one of our cats got into a patch of it one day.” 

“Perhaps we should send for a doctor?” Julian suggested. “Would that be possible?”

Yoko sighed.

“Not in this house, I’m afraid.”

Sean watched as his mother rushed about the room, preparing blankets and tea for the young man, and could not help but think to himself that she was acting against her own son.

She was caring for a killer, he thought.

That man nearly turned him to another corpse in the parlor, and yet his mother was only concerned for the murderer’s wellbeing.

The sight brought a sickly pain to his chest, a piercing sort of sensation.

She would never have done such a thing for his father’s killer.

She never would have dreamed of it.

So why, then, was it different if he was the victim?

His cheeks flushing, the pain in his chest spreading to his shoulders, he interrupted the dialogue between the killer, his father, and the victim’s mother, and for the first time since the company arrived, he called, “ _ Okaa-san _ ,”

Immediately, he felt all eyes in the room rush to him.

But they wouldn’t know what he was saying, he thought to himself. 

They couldn’t have possibly known.

His mother, even, paused for a moment to watch him, taken aback, it seemed, by the sudden use of a language she hadn’t heard in months.

“ _Hai_ ?” she asked slowly.

Continuing in the tongue, trying his best to ignore the remainder of the company’s stares, Sean asked, “What are you doing?”

“I am preparing tea for Dhani.”

“He tried to kill me, Mother.”

“He is not right in the head.”

Raising his voice, the baker asked, “And was the man that killed Father?”

The old woman blinked.

“He came a rabbit’s whisker away from spilling my blood on that rug, and you make him a pot of tea?”

Her tone was bleak as she answered, “I cannot let  _ anyone  _ die in this house, Taro. I will not.”

“Have you no sense of justice?”

“I do, indeed. And it is exemplified in this— if Dhani is to die tonight, then his father shall take my head as a prize.”

“Let him die, I say!”

“That is enough from you,” Yoko snapped. “Your discourse I will take, but your disrespect I shall not.”

“Mother, if you let him live, then who is to say he shall not try a second time to kill me?”

The woman shifted her weight, uncomfortable.

“And what do you expect me to do?” she asked. “Do you want me to kill him myself?”

“Lord, Mother, he ate horsenettle! What you ought to do is let him die by that! I don’t understand how this is so diffi—”

“Enough,” the woman hissed. “You do not tell me what I ought and ought not to do! What  _ you  _ ought to do, I say, is let me take care of this. I am the lady of this house, and I will do as I please.”

“Mother, I cannot in good co—“

“ _ Without  _ your input. By this point in your life, I would expect you to trust in my decisions.”

She shook her head.

“Do not disappoint me, Taro.”

And then, as her son’s face fell, absolutely amazed—in the worst possible way—by his mother’s actions, Yoko returned to the vernacular, asking quickly as she cut some tea into the water, “Dhani, how do you feel?”

“About as well as I can, madam.”

“Do you feel ill?”

“I feel nothing.”

“You feel numb?”  
  
“Nay, I wouldn’t say that…”

“Then don’t say it,” the woman snapped. “Tell me, now, do you feel physically ill?”

Guided by his father’s hand, Dhani sat up, shaking.

“I’ve a pain in my stomach. Although… whether it is from the berries, or simply a result of this situation, I’ve no idea.”

Yoko hummed.

“You ought to drink lots of tea.”

“Will that cure him?” George asked.

“I find it cures a wide array of ailments,” the widow mused. “At the very least, it tastes nice.”

Turning to the remainder of the company, then, her face contorted.

“Is there something you all are staring at?” she asked. “Or have you never seen a woman make tea?”

No one answered, and in the silence, she continued, “Kyoko, when did you get here? You ought to be in bed, love, lest you hurt yourself.”

“You’re awfully calm about all of this,” Julian noted.

“Those that have seen everything fear nothing.”

“Not even the attempted murder of her son?” the longshoreman asked, cocking an eyebrow.

She was silent for a moment, understanding that she had to be very careful in how she responded to the young man, and then replied, “Of course I fear it—just not right now. Right now what I fear is the death of Sir Harrison’s son. That’s why I am trying to prevent it.”

“He broke his oath,” Macca interrupted. “He swore an oath that he would do what was in the best interest of this company.”

“Many people break their promises,” Yoko countered.

The siren shut her down, hissing, “Not many of them try and kill those around them. He broke his oath, Yoko, and I don’t think that’s something we can ignore. Not at a moment like this.”

He blinked.

“Not when we’ve only so much time before Ethelein arrives.”

A murmur ran through the company then, a general expression of agreement regarding the siren’s opinion.

It became increasingly clear, with it, George thought, that a division was tearing the group in two.

It was one side and another, them against us. 

Fearing the worst, he began, “I understand that, Macca. I honestly do. But I do not think it productive to send us back to Madras. You said it yourself—we’ve only so much time. I’d like to be here no matter what happens.”

“No one is going to send you home,” the siren sighed.

“You’re right,” Sean growled, his tone unusually nasal and accusatory. “We should do worse!”

“What are you implying?” Kyoko asked quickly.

“Enough!” Yoko boomed. “For the love of God, if another one of you opens your mouth, I will set this house on fire!”   
  
Her company quickly settled down, but this did nothing to settle Sean’s growing rage.

He stared her down like she was the only thing standing in between him and heaven.

“We will send no one back to Madras, we will let no one die. Make no mistake, Dhani will be punished for his usurpation. But as the lady of this house—a role I remind you all is unquestionably and inconcedeingly mine—I will be the one to decide what that punishment is, I will be the one to execute it, and I will be the one to choose the most appropriate course of action from there.

“Dhani,” she sighed. “You go and rest. I will bring you tea when it is ready. George, you watch over him. Work things out between yourselves, and tell me if his condition worsens any.”

She raised her head high.

“As for the rest of you—I will keep you informed on whatever progress occurs, for better or for worse. Suggestions on what action I should take are welcome, provided they are not thinly veiled attacks on my character or morality.

“For now, this is a matter best dealt with only between myself, Sir Harrison, and his son—meaning none of you will try to interfere. The last thing we need after an attempted murder is a second one.”

A moment passed in silence, and for a split second, the room seemed to let out a breath of relief.

“If there are no questions, then you may all carry on with your night. I will see you later.”

And so it went—Kyoko returned to her bed, now rightly exhausted and growing exceedingly dizzy, George and Dhani made the journey up to the guest bedchamber, Ringo and Macca returned to their tub, whispering all the way in their oceanic tongue, and Yoko continued preparing the young Sir Harrison’s pot of tea.

The only people left in the parlor were Julian and Sean.

They spoke in low tones so as not to disturb the madam of the house, releasing their frustrations and checking up on one another.

The consensus was, by the end of their conversation, that Yoko was either slipped a dose of horsenettle as well, or simply held her son in a lower regard than either of them had thought.

She knew firsthand what homicide did to those who survived, they agreed, and so her rather empathetic response made next to no sense at all.

They also agreed, rather quickly, that the young Sir Harrison was not to be trusted—at least not around Sean.

The sooner he was shipped back to the other side of the Earth, they said, the better.

Quite frankly, there was a part of Sean that hoped he died.

Perhaps it was true that earlier on in our tale, the baker had stated his distaste for the murder of murderers, but by that terrible night, that might as well have been eons ago.

It was not until the next morning, not until the sun shone just barely through the guest bedchamber window, that Yoko came only to speak to Dhani.

The young man was lying awake in his bed, staring at the ceiling when he heard the door creak open.

He did not take his eyes off of the white space above him, however, figuring his father had returned to grab a handkerchief before he went off to breakfast, or a watch, perhaps.

And then, walking towards the edge of the bed, Yoko called, “Dhani.”  
  
His gaze turned slowly towards her, too tired, both physically and mentally speaking, to address her with any sort of formality.

Still, he was surprised to see that she held in her hand a gleaming kitchen knife.

Drawing back at the realization that the young man was aware of her possessions, the widow then warned, “I trust you will not try anything on me.”

“I will not,” Dhani sighed. “Although you’re free to stab me in the heart, Madam Lennon, should you wish it.”

Taking a seat on the edge of George’s bed, Yoko shook her head.

“I will do no such thing—provided this peace is kept. It isn’t what I came here to do.”

“Then what is?” the young man asked, tilting his head. 

“My first order,” she began. “Is to ask you how you feel.”

Dhani shrugged. 

“Are you still having stomach pains?”

“Not anymore, no.”

Yoko nodded.

“And I see the foaming has subsided?”

“Indeed.”

“Very good.”

“Just tell me your second order.”

At this the old woman let out a sigh.

“Oh,” she said. “You’ve no patience.”

“Tell me, please, madam.”

“I will tell you nothing,” Yoko answered plainly, staring into his soul as her lips curled into a frown. “What I want is for  _ you  _ to tell  _ me _ —why did you do it?”

“Why did I—”

She tensed as she clarified, “Why did you want to kill Sean? Why did you poison yourself? What possessed you to believe he was a warlock?”

“You knew about that?” the young man asked quickly. “That I thought him to be an agent of the devil?”

She nodded.

“He told me last night.” 

And then, after a pause, she returned to the subject, repeating, “Now, why did you think it to be true?”

Dhani furrowed his brow.

“Well… I mean you no offense, madam, in saying this, but…”

Yoko bit the inside of her cheek.

“He doesn’t exactly look like a God-fearing sort of fellow.”

“Nor does Macca,” the captain countered. “Why do you not kill him?”

“Macca has not proven to be a detriment to our company.”

“And Sean has?”

“Yes!” the young man cried. “He’s spent all his days fawning over that bird—which I’ve no doubt is his familiar—he’s purposely downplayed the seriousness of this whole situation, conveniently ignoring the fact that our lives are in very real danger.... He’s kept us hostage here, he goes around acting like he’s never wrong, and the worst part—he was the one that started this all! He was the one that invited us to this wretched place!”

“No,” the woman said sharply. “That was me.”

“It- it was?”

“Yes. I do not how to write in English, so I had him write the letters for me. But it was all my idea, I assure you, to invite you here.”

She paused.

“Of course—if I would have known at the time that it would end like this… I suppose I would never have done it.”

“Moving on,” she sighed, shaking her head. “Why is it that you think he’s a witch? Is it convenient for you?”

“Oh, no, madam, it’s no issue of convenience—it is fact. You, as well, are a witch, if I am not mistaken. And why would I be? It was the pastor, after all, who told me of you.”

“The pastor?” Yoko asked. “Well, then, there’s your problem! The last person in this town that would tell you the truth about me is a pastor. They all think I’m some kind of Oriental demon.”

“But, madam, is it not true that you and your daughter came to this city speaking in tongues?”

“Maybe once or twice,” the woman grumbled. “But you must understand—reports of my activities have been greatly exaggerated. It’s no longer about what is true—I doubt it ever was.

“You see, Dhani, it’s a very strange  thing, myself being here. I am not supposed to be, to many people. So they wonder why. What is she doing here? Why is she so unusual?

“I would revel in their apprehension, truly, if it did not endanger my life.”

Dhani stopped to consider this.

“Human beings are creatures of melodrama,” the woman continued. “They would rather take an excitingly false story than a plainly true story. Although, if you ask me, my own story is just as interesting as that this town’s written for me.”

“But what about your daughter?” Dhani asked, seemingly forgetting he was in the company of a witch. “I was told that you and your husband killed her.”

Yoko grew solemnly silent for a second, and then, her eyes narrowing, she uttered, “That is untrue to the largest possible degree. It is true that on this day some thirty years ago, she disappeared. But believe me when I say I had no part in it.”

She looked the young man in the eyes.

“She was not killed, as you know—my goodness, she’s just in the other room. It was her father who took her. Not John, mind you—he was only ever her stepfather. 

“Her real one wanted her for himself—he was not exactly fond of me, you see—and so he took her and ran away to New England. Does that sound like it is any fault of mine?”

“But how did she return?”

“One day she just did,” the widow sighed. “We never went anywhere, after all, and so she found her way home.”

She lightened up only a smidge then, concluding, “And thank God for that—heaven knows we missed her.”

“She is not… some kind of imposter?”

“Of course not!” Yoko scoffed. “How would I—”

“Anything is possible through magic, madam.”

“And am I magical?”

“I-“

The young man froze in his tracks.

He had no idea how to answer that question.

“For heaven’s sake, what do they teach you in Madras?”

“I’m not sure,” Dhani sighed. “But… your daughter. Is she any better today?”

Yoko tensed.

“No,” she whispered. “No, she’s… Well, I saw her this morning. Her skin looks like snow—and it feels like it, too. She can’t even sit up.”

“Madam,” Dhani interrupted. “What of your son?”

“What of him?”

“Was he not conceived through magic?”

Yoko’s eyebrows raised to the clouds.

“What? Do you think he is the second coming of Christ? He was conceived the same way everyone on this planet was!”

“But what of your neighbor’s stillbirth?”

“Oh, God—I felt terrible for her, truly! And I say that as a woman who has lost many a pregnancy. But I did not steal the soul of her late child! How would one even go about such a thing?”   
  
Dhani flushed.

“That is what I hate about such gossip—if you are to think about it logically for a half a second, it all falls apart. But these people—none of them have the patience to think! And what kind of a life is that, wandering around with not a second to think for yourself?

“I must say, Dhani, it disappoints me that you would be one of those people to believe in such things. You seem to me much wiser than that.”

“My apologies, madam.”

The woman leaned forward, then, asking, “So tell me, then—why is it that you trusted in such blatant fallacies?”

“If I could tell you, I would.”

“You know not?”

“I’ve not a clue.”

Yoko tilted her head a bit.

“Then perhaps I could offer an answer.”

Dhani shrugged. 

“If you so please,” he said. 

The widow nodded.

“What I find,” she began. “Is that people take comfort in ascribing what should be their problems to another person. They want to find someone at fault, because God forbid they could be to blame.

“I think it’s some kind of cruel survival strategy, really—finding someone else to hate keeps you from hating yourself.”

The young man furrowed his brow.

“Could that be it, do you think?” the woman asked. 

Dhani brought his hand to his head, running his fingers through his hair as if in realization.

He tried his best to remember how his whole crusade started—not an easy task, taking into consideration all that had happened in the past month.

But what he came up with was this:   
When Kyoko had burst into the house that evening, raving like a woman gone mad about how she had spotted her own grave, he had overheard the two women speak of their accusations.

When he had presented his father with such information, he had been immediately and harshly dismissed.

Frustrated with this, he had wandered down into the parlor, and was oddly drawn to the book with the tar-black cover— _ Daemonologie _ , that is. 

For the next couple of weeks, he had read the book, growing more and more convinced with every passing hour of the baker’s malice.

His suspicions were propagated by Reverend Abraham Thomas in the church, his anxiety grew with his vision the morning Kyoko had dropped the company’s breakfast, and with the advent of the looking glass—not to mention the reveal of the bird’s identity—he was practically being spoon-fed evidence.

He was a blind fool, he thought.

It wasn’t evidence that was being served to him, as he had so conveniently believed.

It was regular events he had witnessed, misconstrued through the lens of a man so desperate to believe his faults were not his own that he was willing to kill for it.

Those times he had spoken to Julian and Sean, he had ignored their good nature all together. 

Any disagreement between himself and the baker—no matter how trivial—was viewed as a threat to his very life.

But why, he wondered?

Madam Lennon had been right—he was too smart to fall victim to such frivolous beliefs.

And yet he had. He had nearly killed a man over them.

But that was so unlike him, he thought.

Chastising himself, a contradicting thought manifested in his brain.

Of course it was like him, it went. 

What was he, if not the mad, idiotic, bastard son of a pagan and Spaniard?

His mind ached, feeling as though it would split in half with the ideas, and only then did he see the middle path.

He was not infallible, he reasoned, nor was he the devil incarnate.

He knew what he wasn’t—not a witch-hunter or seraphim or prophet specially selected by God.

But now it was time to figure out what he was.

He was a man, he concluded.

He was  _ only  _ a man.

And part of belonging to such an advanced species, he thought, was suffering. 

It was only men who were so capable to be bothered by things, only men who were so capable to cry. 

Not another beast on Earth had the power to make knives to stab their fellow men with. 

Not another beast on Earth would care to witness such a thing.

Not another beast on Earth feared death, or even the death of those around them.

To be human, he thought, was to be both blessed and cursed.

No man could control the circumstances by which he entered the world, in the same way no man could tame death.

But what he could do—an ability most certainly endowed by his most holy Creator—was control the circumstances by which others wandered the world.

He could be either selfish, self-ignorant, and self-loathing, or he could be self-aware with the understanding that there were men around him, perfectly similar to himself, who were just trying to get by in this game we call life.

It seemed, beyond any doubt, no matter how he had tried to deny it, that in choosing to make Sean the target of his own self-hatred, Dhani had chosen the former.

His hand on his chin, he answered the woman, waiting expectantly on the other bed, “It must be… My God, it has to be—it  _ is _ .”

“I thought so,” Yoko said dryly, her head tilted back as she nodded. “So what is it that you are so scared to see in yourself?”

The young man paused, and then, shaking his head, whispered, “So many things… I’m terrified by the thought that I am so gullible as to be driven to murder by nothing but a rumor. I fear death, I fear life, I fear my visions! Lord, madam, what is it that I’m not afraid of?”

“Your visions,” the widow mused. “Now there’s something…”

“What do you mean?” Dhani asked, incredulous.

“I bet they are awfully frightening.”   
  
“Oh, no,” the young man sighed. “I make them out to be much worse than they are. It’s so childish of me, truly, although…”

“You’ve no control over it,” Yoko completed.

“Precisely.”

“Well, that’s nothing but a lie. If you are not in control of them, after all, how is it possible that you are doing something to make them worse?”

“I only meant that I act as though they are worse than they truly are.”

“Is reliving the experience of your father being stabbed near to death ever a good thing?” the woman asked. “Is that not something that should be treated with the utmost seriousness?”

“It isn’t real!” Dhani argued.

“But it’s real to  _ you _ ,” Yoko stressed. “And if it is happening to you and you alone, frightening you to the point it is, then why should George have any merit to say it isn’t that bad?”

The young man pursed his lips.

Tilting her chin down at him, the woman added, “I saw you that morning, you know.”

“Did you?”  
  
“I did,” she nodded. “And watching what your father did—how he handled the whole thing, I suppose—it broke my heart. I tried to help, but… you know him. He wouldn’t let me.”  
  
Dhani nodded.

Leaning in, the woman continued, “But do you know why it affected me the way it did? Do you know why I felt so bad for you?”

“That’s a question only you can answer, madam.”

Ignoring him completely, Yoko said, “It’s because I know what you’re going through. I’ve been there.”

“No, you don’t,” Dhani sighed.

“Oh, but I do. After my husband was killed, you know—I began having visions just the same as you.”

The young man looked up at her for the first time since she opened her mouth.

“My heart bleeds for you, I suppose. I’ve heard it said that we are most compassionate to those most like ourselves, and I think that there’s a lot of truth to that. 

“Seeing you like that, frightened in the way that you were, both that morning and last night—I think that’s what has driven me to reach out to you.

“It’s not a very popular decision,” she sighed. “Being so much as tolerable to you even if you tried to kill my son—not that I am forgiving, you, mind you. I’ll not do that until I see you’ve fully atoned for your misdeeds—And I won’t lie to you, it is very difficult for me to do. But I had to do it. Because I knew what would happen if I did.”

“And what is that?”

“I just might win you over to the side of reason.”

Drawing in a deep breath, Dhani replied, “You’ve done well, madam.”

And as his eyes fell upon his battered copy of Newton’s  _ Principia Mathematica _ , he added, “It’s very good to be back.”

_ 36 hours and 38 minutes. _


	57. Logic and the Defamation Thereof

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dhani speaks to Sean.

Sean spent nearly all of Christmas Eve going out of his way to avoid the young Sir Harrison.

For that matter, he seemed to be avoiding everyone but Julian and Kyoko.

See, the brothers Lennon had come up with a sort of unspoken agreement, a benefit of that fraternity found among siblings, and that was that the elder would do his best to watch over the younger, to keep him safe from any threat.

This rule had been in place since the beginning, of course, but after Sean’s brief brush with death, it seemed to apply more than ever.

As such, the two spent quite a lot of time that day with one another, discussing, in their same low tones, the madness of Sean’s mother and the young Sir Harrison, as well as the mildly upsetting circumstances under which that year’s Christmas Eve would take place.

Not that the two of them had ever really cared for the holiday, of course. 

Sean had always considered it one of the darkest days of the year, a reminder of everything his mother had lost—her husband, her daughter, her sense of reason. 

She often let the day pass with little fanfare, sitting by the window and thinking unknowable thoughts.

And Julian had, for many years, found himself with no good reason to celebrate. 

In fact, the most he had ever done, as far back as he could remember, was visit his mother and eat some duck.

He was not wed, he thought. 

He had no children to come home to.

And on top of that, the day marked the anniversary of his stepsister’s disappearance.

The only memory it brought him was that of his final letter to the girl, a joyous (and nearly illegible) scribble of childhood excitement to celebrate the birth of the Lord. 

It was returned, after three months, with the explanation from his father of why she had never responded.

It was reading those words, he thought as a grown man, that had warped his view of the world.

Reading those words, a small piece of him died.

And now, he mourned, how ironic was it?

Time was spinning in a circle around itself, and thirty years after the world had thought Kyoko Cox had died, she was standing with one foot in her own grave—a real one this time.

Somehow, in the span of one night, her condition had worsened to the point that Julian had to divide his time between his half-dead younger sister and his emotionally dead younger brother, both of whom he was equally concerned about.

He would spend long hours sitting in Kyoko’s bedchamber, bible in hand as he read from the book of Psalms, describing the valley of the shadow of death, and transcribing a heartfelt message from her to her husband and children.

Of course, Kyoko was not a woman of few words, nor was she a woman that did not care for her family.

As such, her prose (which left her mouth at a frustratingly slow and cold tone) was lengthy, and in her stepbrother’s mind, enough to rival Homer himself. 

Which, by dreadful coincidence, meant that Sean was once again sitting by himself in the parlor, his mother in Kyoko’s bedchamber, and Sir Harrison discussing the idea of God with the mermen in the dining room.

And once again, by a dreadful yet planned coincidence, Dhani walked into the room from the kitchen.

The baker did not notice him at first, his nose stuck in the comedic adventures of Antonio, Bassanio, Shylock, and Portia.

But after a moment, hearing the young Sir Harrison’s sigh, he turned to look at him, his neck nearly snapping in two at the speed by which he did so.

Instinctively, Sean flinched, his face contorting at the sight of his would-be assassin, and with a hint of disappointment in his voice, said, “I see you’re alive.”   
Dhani wrung his hands above his navel.

“That I am, Mister Lennon.”

“If you’ve come to try it a second time,” the young man sighed. “Then know that I am fully prepared to toss you in the frozen well outside without any hesitation.”

“Nay,” Dhani retorted. “I assure you, that’s not at all what I’m here to do.”

“I see,” Sean laughed. “This time you want to try Julian.”

“On the contrary.”

“Kyoko, then?”

“I have no desire to—”

“If it’s Kyoko, then believe me, you won’t have to try very hard—the woman’s white as a sheet.”

“I’ve no desire to take anyone’s life,” Dhani finally said, demanding. “Perhaps I did before, but you must know, Mister Lennon, that I have changed.”

Slamming his book shut, Sean looked like he was about to throw something at the young Sir Harrison.

“In one night,” he deadpanned. “You’ve gone from telling me I am a half-breed warlock that deserves no life to kissing my arse?”

Dhani flushed.

“My God, give it a rest.”

“I understand it may appear that way,” the young man stammered. “But I truly have—”

“I couldn’t care less if you opened an orphanage for half-breed bastard warlocks, Sir  _ Immeasurably More Righteous Than Thee _ Harrison. My pity does not extend to killers, especially those that believe they will be fully forgiven for their crimes within a matter of hours.”

Dhani’s face fell.

“If you honestly cannot get that through your skull, then I suggest smashing it with a hammer. Lord knows might just do you some good.”

Sean shook his head, then, and for a long time, kept silent, opening his book without another word.

Dhani, unsure of what to do, shifted his weight, his eyes transfixed on the baker as he saw for the first time what he really was.

He saw a man sitting in front of him reading a book.

Pursing his lips and taking particular notice of the occasional side glances Sean would steal of him, the young Sir Harrison said at last, “I spoke to your mother this morrow.”

“Ah,” the baker jeered. “You two would get along just fine, wouldn’t you? The pinnacles of reason, you are.”

He shook his head.

“It’s a match made in heaven…”

“I did find her quite wise,” Dhani began, taking a seat across from the young man. “If that’s what you meant to ask.”

“Of course you did,” Sean grumbled.

“She’s been awfully kind to me… I ought to thank her one of these days.”

“Then you can stab her in the back, I’m sure!”

Dhani stared at the ground.

He couldn’t blame the baker for being in such an awful mood, he supposed.

Anyone would be.

“There isn’t any excuse for what I’ve done,” he sighed. 

“Well done, Sir Newton.”

“And a part of me still wants to believe that it was justified, I suppose… b—”

“I’ve no doubt,” Sean snarled. “The worst sort of men always think they’re the most righteous, don’t they?”

“Please let me finish, Mister Lennon.”

“Once you’ve stopped plotting my murder, I might.”

Dhani drew in a deep breath, reminding himself that he had to keep himself together, and then said, “I want to believe it was justified, but I must admit—your mother’s talked a good bit of sense into me.”

“Miracle of miracles, wonder of wonders,” the baker deadpanned. “A madman’s said  _ your mother  _ and  _ sense  _ in the same breath!”

“I did,” Dhani confirmed. “And while I cannot sit here and tell you that I think her to be a perfectly rational and logical person—as we are—”

“ _ We _ ?” Sean gasped. “Tell me, Most Holy Sir Harrison—in what world is trying to poison someone who did nothing to you a perfectly rational and logical thing to do?”

“I may have misspoken, there, a—”

“Lord, are you from Madras or from Mars?” the baker continued. “What did I even do to you? Are you—

He laughed to himself, although it really was more of a scornful sound.

“Are you honestly so sensitive that at the mere mention of your own  _ factual  _ bastardry, you grab a knife and resolve to stab a man?”

“That is not what I did!” Dhani argued. “My God, Mister Lennon, if you wish to insult me, at least do it correctly!”

“And which part of that is not correct?” Sean shot back. “Where, exactly, did I lie? I’ll tell you this much, if you can tell me, you might as well be first in line for the throne—”

He paused.

“ _ Oh, wait _ !”

“For heaven’s sake, Mister Lennon, will you stop with the bastardry? All I want to say is that—”

“What?” the young man hissed. “That you’re sorry?”

Dhani grew red in the face.

“Yes!” he shouted. “As I matter of fact, I am, and I’ve never been so sorry for anything else in my life!”

Sean frowned, his face distorting as though someone had shoved an entire lemon into his mouth.

“If you want to believe I am a dunce,” Dhani continued. “Then you are perfectly free to do so. I don’t blame you in the slightest, and do you know why? I have been.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so idiotic in any of the twenty-two years I’ve been on this Earth, believing in what I did.

“But what your mother told me, and what I’ve thought about for many hours now, all day, in fact, is this—the reason I went after you, and you specifically, is because you are a very easy target to hit.”

Sean crossed his arms, and Dhani began to stutter, anxious as he laid his ship bare in front of the baker.

Still, he continued, “I think it’s obvious to both of us that an overabundance of terrible events have befallen this company since we reunited.”

“You’ve no idea.”

“Maybe not…” the young Sir Harrison sighed. “But even before we came here… I wasn’t exactly doing well.” 

“Oh, please.”

“No, I wasn’t. For heaven’s sake, Mister Lennon, my father is on the edge of death—he has been for a year now. And I’m losing my mind! You saw it yesternight, even!

“This whole…  _ whatever it is _ certainly hasn’t helped any, of course. So I wanted someone to blame everything on.”

“Then why me?” Sean asked.

“I already told you—you were an easy target. You’re the strange one of us, I suppose. 

“From what I am able to recall, I noticed very early on that you were the only one willing to work with the bird, as opposed to denouncing it outright.

“And in combination with your…  _ unorthodox _ appearance—”

“Oh, Lord…”

“I came to the conclusion that you had to be a warlock. And once I heard that your family was unanimously accepted as such, and once I had found a book written by the old King James speaking of the craft and how to identify it… I was dead set in my own delusions.”

“Then you are no different than the man that killed my father,” Sean murmured.

Dhani turned to him, frightened.

“Believing in these sorts of things.”

“I don’t know how, Mister Lennon—truly, I don’t understand it—but somehow I came to the conclusion that you were out to get myself and my father. 

“So in my own mind,” he sighed. “You had to die.”

“Impenetrable logic,” Sean jeered.

“I know.” And then, perking up, he added, “But I truly don’t think I ever could have done it!”

“You’re only saying that to make me pity you.”

“I assure you, I am not—I mean it with my whole heart and soul.”

“No, you don’t!” the baker said, frustrated. “If you truly could not have done it, then you never would have thought to do it! It’s that simple!”

“Mister Lennon,” Dhani pleaded. “Listen to me! I’m not sure what I was doing, honestly! It’s as though, in that moment, I lost control of myself!”

“Of course. It was the hand of King James guiding you to poison my wine, wasn’t it?”

“That isn’t what I mean and you know it.”

“As a matter of fact,” Sean fumed. “I don’t. Here’s the thing, Pompously Titled Sir Harrison—”

“Will you stop that?!”

“My apologies. Here’s the thing,  _ Immensely and Incredibly Pompously Titled _ Sir Harrison—”

Dhani was beginning to think, in a purely comedic sort of way, that he should have killed the young man.

“You say that you can make no excuses for what you’ve done, and yet in the same breath, you excuse yourself, saying that you were not in control of your own actions and that it is  _ my  _ fault I’m an easy target.”

“I said no s—”

“Shut your mouth, I’m not done.”

Dhani furrowed his brow.

“Perhaps you are one of those men under the impression that if you just try hard enough, if you just make it sound like you’re guilty enough, all your sins will be forgiven.

“Well, let me tell you something— _ it isn’t true _ . You can lie to yourself all you want about how you aren’t to blame, but you can’t lie to me.

“The truth is that it’s  _ your  _ fault. It’s your fault you wanted to kill me and it’s your fault you tried to do it—no amount of my mother’s half-truths will ever fix it.”

“I understand that, Mister Lennon, alth—”

“For the last bloody time— _ No. You. Don’t. _ Because if you were listening to what I was saying, even just a bit of it, then you would gather by this point that I’m not going to forgive you.”

The young Sir Harrison frowned.

“By all means, go ahead and pretend I’m in the wrong. Think of me as a stubborn half-breed with no mercy to spare.”

He shook his head.

“But know that it’s an easy thing to think when you’ve never witnessed someone’s murder.”

After a brief pause, Dhani said in a meek voice, “I nearly did.”

“Mine doesn’t count, you dunce.”

“No,” the young Sir Harrison objected. “I speak of my father.”

Sean grew silent, and then asked, “Do you forgive that man?”

Dhani swallowed the lump in his throat.

And seeing that he had no answer, Sean concluded, “Then don’t expect me to forgive you.”

Shaking his head as he left the room, he offered Dhani with one final message.

“I am not your absolution, no matter what bile my mother might spew from her mouth.”

Christmas Eve dinner in New York was a bleak affair, both the food and the guests looking dull and unexcited.

They ate cod, bread, raisins, parsnips and onion soup, drinking well water with their meals as they all glared at one another. 

If things had been tense before, then they were out of the realm of imagination by that night.

Julian watched Yoko with contempt, Sean stole glances at Dhani as though he would jump up any second and kick him where it counted, George said not a single word, Ringo hardly ate, preferring instead to fiddle with his necklace, and where Kyoko was supposed to be sitting, there was only empty space. 

Macca sat and watched it all unfold.

The only thing they had in common anymore, he thought, was the raw fear they felt in anticipation of Ethelein’s arrival.

By Saruyo’s words, they had only one more day until he would appear—and after that, everything was out of their control.

Perhaps, he reasoned, he could use that fear—that primal urge to know what would happen—to his own advantage.

The last thing he needed was for divisions to form within the company, but if he could rally them against a common enemy, he thought, or more accurately, a common  _ cause _ , then the tears could be mended.

It was him who was in charge, really—more than Yoko ever would be, for he was the only person at that table that was educated in the ways of magic.

He was the one that could control their fears and braveries, he was the one that could prepare them for the best and worst cases.

If he did not use that power properly, he thought, then he would be smited by it—like a sword with too sharp an edge.

Deciding he had no other choice, he began, “We have but one more day.”

His company all looked up at him, their eyes dull.

“Believe me,” George sighed. “We’re aware of that.”

“But are you aware of what might happen?”

“Well, we briefly discussed it, did we not?”

“But did we discuss it  _ at length _ ?” The siren asked rhetorically. “I need you all to know exactly what to expect tomorrow—lest chaos rule the day.”

“How can we know what to expect?” Julian asked, his head tilted. “I thought you said nothing like this has ever happened before.”

“Maybe not, but there’s the thing about magic—and for that matter, all of the sciences—even when you don’t know anything, you still know something. There are still rules and laws and general principles.”

“So you’re going to guess?” Yoko muttered.

“If you would so allow it.”

“I take no issue with it.”

Macca smiled.

“Very good. Now, if you remember, all Saruyo told us was that the prophet would rise in three days’ time. There’s quite a bit to define in there, but let’s start with this—

“We know for sure that the prophet—meaning Ethelein—will come back to Earth on…”

He turned to George.

“When did you say it was in human time?”

Wheezing, the old man responded, “The twenty-fifth of December. It’s Christmas Day.”

“And today is the twenty-fourth?”

“Aye.”

“Then on Christmas Day—tomorrow—we know for a fact that Ethelein will come back. But we don’t know what form he’ll take, when exactly he’ll arrive  _ or  _ whether or not he’ll bring the souls he’s stolen with him.”

Yoko perked up.

“You mean to say he could bring the others?”

“Their souls,” Macca said. “At the very least. But a soul is nothing without a vessel.”

“That’s right,” Ringo muttered. “Would he try to possess an animal… or an object… or—”

“There’s really no way for us to know. It would make the most sense, I think for him to take hold of a bird—he is used to that, after all.”

“All the birds have flown south for the winter,” Sean said, furrowing his brow. “I don’t think there are any left here—it’s why I was so enamored to see a dove at this time of year.”

“They’re all gone?” Macca asked, surprised.

“Yes, they do it every year.”

“Oh.”

The siren drew back.

“Well, I didn’t know  _ that _ .”

“Would he possess a person, then?” Dhani asked, alarmed.

Macca licked his teeth.

“It’s…  _ possible _ , I suppose. But what are the odds?”

“Do you think he would rather be a teapot?” Sean deadpanned, the usual chipper tone in his voice having died a very long time ago.

The siren pressed his fingers to his temple.

“Look,” he sighed. “I honestly can’t give you an answer. We just have to be ready for anything at this point.”

“But how likely is it that we’ll be possessed?”

“I’ve already told you! I can’t s—”

“Who among us do you think it would be?” Julian asked, interrupting Macca. “There are eight of us, after all, and only four souls including Ethelein’s.”

“What would it look like?” Yoko asked, paranoid. “If one of us were possessed? Would we know about it?”

“I—”

Dhani’s foot bounced up and down in an allegro tempo, and with discernable fear in his voice, he asked, “What would they sound like? Would they speak with the voice of their possessor, or…?” 

His mind swamped with the sudden barrage of questions, Macca widened his eyes.

He was fully prepared to start on a lecture on the importance of togetherness in such desperate times, but with a quick realization, it occurred to him that he would only be trying to save face.

What he ought to be lecturing the company on, he thought, was speaking one at a time!

But he had to do it just right.

If he came off as too uptight or demanding, he knew that he would end up doing the exact opposite of what had to be done. That is to say, if he ventured into a long lecture, as he so often did, then he would only court the company’s scorn, adding to their stress and sowing their divisions.

“Again,” he said after drawing in a breath. “There isn’t very much we can know right now. I don’t want to take any sort of worst-case scenario and fill all your minds with panic, but I’ll tell you this much: if he does possess any of us—and that is quite possible—then I find it difficult to imagine we wouldn’t know. I don’t know what that would look or sound like, but the person would without a doubt appear different than we know them to be.” 

“Do you know yet whether or not they would have a choice in the matter?” George asked. “The other souls, that is—Rette, Iyera, John. I know we spoke of this very subject the other day, and you could not provide an answer. But do you know now?”   
After a pause, the siren responded, “I don’t. But what I do know—another thing—is that when he comes back, we’re all going to have to be here. It’s us he wants to see, after all. It’s us his prophecy was written about.”

“But not myself or Sean,” Dhani countered. “We were not even born at the time of the witch’s death.”

“Yes,” Sean muttered, sitting up. “How will that affect everything?”

“Well,” Macca began. “You may have some explaining to do...”

“But the bird was so friendly with Sean,” Julian added. “Perhaps he recognizes him?”

The siren shook his head.

“That would be impossible—at least if it was Ethelein that saw him. If it was John, then we have an explanation for that.”

“That he recognized me as his own son?” Sean asked.

“Exactly.”

“But what  _ is  _ he able to recognize?” Ringo said, fiddling with his necklace. “So much time has passed since his death… do you really think he’s able to make out who’s who just by looking at them?”

George cocked an eyebrow.

“Well, he must know, somehow,” Macca explained. “And, stars! It has to be different for the others! Iyera, at least, seems to have retained most of her senses.”

“So if it’s John,” Yoko began, stabbing her fork into a piece of cod. “It could recognize us. But if it’s Ethelein, the opposite is true?”

“It could very well be.”

Julian leaned back in his chair.

“But don’t you remember what I told you yesternight, Macca? About the dream I had?”

A worried look came over the siren’s face. “What about it, exactly?”

“The scotsman told Sean and I that the bird couldn’t recognize things for what they are. Do you think he might have been referring to people?”

“Do I think Ethelein is improperly assuming who we are, you mean?”

“Indeed.”

“I see no reason why he would confuse us for anyone else. My own theory is that he probably knows who he’s speaking to through some sort of memory of what we did to him while he was alive. A sort of knowledge acquired without being taught, if you will. I know not how correct it may be, but… it’s the best I can offer right now.”

“That sounds reasonable,” George said, nodding.

“But if the bird was so friendy to Sean,” Julian began. “And Ethelein never once met him—”

“Jude,” Macca said plainly. “I already told you. It must have been John that did that.”

“But we have no way of knowing for sure.”

“What about the looking glass?” the siren offered.

“What, have you figured it out?”

“Not completely,” he admitted. “But I do have a theory as to what everything means.”

“Then by all means,” Yoko said. “Share it.”

Tossing his veil around his shoulder, so as to keep to from touching his food, Macca explained, “Each color, I feel, must represent a single one of the souls inside the  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ complex. Violet is Ethelein, because that was his tail color, red is Iyera for the same reason, blue is Rette, because he was a blue crab, and green is John by process of elimination.

“If you aren’t willing to believe that, though, I do have some more—Whenever we look into the mirror, we see ourselves, do we not? But most of the time, it is a vision of us as we were in the past. Ringo had a beard, I did not have as much of a wet sand face, and we were all much younger than we are now.

“Why is this? Well, if I’m not mistaken, then I think it’s because that’s how that individual person—reflected in the color of the glass—would have seen us before their death.

“When it was violet, for instance, I looked as though I was still on the ship—which makes sense considering Ethelein never saw me after we had retired it.”

Yoko swallowed the lump forming in her throat.

When the mirror had been green, she thought, she had been covered in blood.

“I read in that book that  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ are known to occasionally give tools to their companies to help further their own goals. And looking back on it, I’d say that’s certainly the case—if it was Ethelein who was coming to warn us of the prophecy, then he would want us to know that it’s him we’ve been speaking to—in other words, we had to figure out  _ who  _ was in front of us. 

“So with the looking glass,” he concluded. “And our own cleverness in deciphering it,  _ we were able to _ . I think we ought to be proud of that.”

Sean sat with his brow furrowed for a moment.

And then, shaking his head, he retorted, “It’s a good idea, sir, I honestly think so, although…”

He laughed.

“It doesn’t work.”

“And why not?”

“When Julian and I looked into the mirror,” he explained. “We did not see ourselves.”

The siren drew back.

“We saw our father.”

“And when I looked into it,” George added. “I saw the bird.”

“And it was orange!” Dhani piped. “If there is only John, Rette, Iyera, and Ethelein inside of the bird, represented by those colors respectively, then why did the looking glass turn orange as well?”

“Only when you looked into it, George?” Macca asked, confused. “No one else saw that?”

“Nay,” Sean confirmed. “And Julian and I have held onto the looking glass from the morning we got it.”

“And you saw the bird?” 

“That I did,” George wheezed. “I never once saw myself—at least, not until the other night.”

“But why you?” the siren wondered aloud. “You aren’t part of the  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ complex…”

“But when the mirror broke,” Ringo reminded his friend. “After the bird’s blood spilled on it—we saw Ethelein, Rette, John, Iyera, and George grow old. It can’t be a coincidence!”

“I never said it was!” Macca defended. “I just… I don’t understand why he would be there when he has no business in doing so! He’s perfectly alive, for heaven’s sake! Ethelein couldn’t even try and take his soul!”

“But there has to be a reason,” Yoko said. “There’s been an explanation for everything we’ve seen so far. To exclude this would just be—”

“I am  _ not  _ trying to exclude it!” the siren cried. “I never said there wasn’t a reason for it, either! All I’m saying is that I don’t know what that reason would be.”

“Well,” Dhani began with shaking breath. “Let’s think through it—If when we look in the mirror, we see our younger selves, then when my father looks in the mirror…”

His face contorted.

Turning to his father, he suggested, “Perhaps you were a bird in a past life?”

“It wouldn’t show that,” George reprimanded.

“Oh,” Sean hissed. “Why are we still speaking of the mirror? It’s been shattered. It’s  _ gone _ .”

“Because we need to figure everything out,” Macca said sternly. “It’s our only choice if we want to survive.”

“Is it?” the baker asked, growing visibly frustrated. “Is wasting everyone’s time arguing over unanswerable questions truly the only way we’ll all make it out of here?”

“It’s important t—”

“Because in case you haven’t noticed,” the young man shouted, gesturing towards the empty seat at the table. “Not  _ all  _ of us are going to leave this place alive!”

“Sean,” Yoko scolded. “That’s enough.”

“My sister is upstairs dying,” he continued, standing up from his chair. “I was nearly poisoned by  _ him _ , and come tomorrow morning, we could all wake up in Hell!”

“Sean,” Macca said, finally breaking through. “Was it not you who spent hours deciphering the prophecy? Was it not you who proposed every theory under the sun about the bird’s identity? And now  _ you’re  _ the one that thinks you can give up on everything?”

“When you all came here,” the baker cried, slamming his fist on the table and causing his brother to flinch. “I thought there was some purpose to it! I thought we would all get along and leave in January or February as better men! Even when that blasted  _ bloody  _ bird showed up, I thought I could figure it out!”

His chest caving in on itself, he continued, “But all that’s happened in the past month is a whittling down of my spirits! It’s some kind of terrible reminder, really, that no matter how hard I try, no matter how hard  _ any  _ of us try to fix things—the prophecy, our relationships, Kyoko, my  _ goddamn father _ —we can’t. We never have, and we’re never going to. 

“It’s about time I accepted that,” he whispered. 

Shaking his head and turning to the longshoreman at his side he concluded, “Julian—you had the right idea. I’ve been too trusting. I’m done.”

“I… I don’t understand.”

“I’m going home.”

“No you aren’t,” Yoko said, a grave edge in her voice. Switching to her native tongue, she uttered, “Taro, if you are to leave this house in this final hour, then I shall never let you back inside.”

“You will not make good on that,” he deadpanned.

In one last desperate attempt, speaking in hardly a whisper, Yoko said, “ _ I will not lose my daughter  _ and  _ my son _ .”

Sean shut his eyes tight, and walking towards the door, returning to English, begged, “Just leave me be…”

The whole house was silent as he reached the entrance to the foyer.

But then, with the sound of branches being cut from a tree, coiling like a snake around its prey’s bloated body, on the young man’s arm grew a series of tangling, thorned, tar-black vines, tearing through his shirt and clawing deep into his flesh, and from them blossomed a dozen dove-white roses.

Little to the company’s knowledge, all of those flowers—and the strawberries along with them—on the baker’s fireplace had burned. They were incinerated—absolutely destroyed, and without a trace of them ever being there.

And as Sean fell to his knees, his left arm gripping his right as pain shot through the latter side of his body, his mouth managing only to sound out pained moans, Macca had only one thing to say.

His eyes wide, his body frozen, he whispered, “It’s begun…”   
  


_ 25 hours and 14 minutes. _


	58. A Dozen Roses, a Pair of Truces, and a Single Porcelain Doll

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Julian awakens.

Sighing as he opened his eyes, his back stiff from having spent the night on the sofa, Julian sat up on Christmas Morning to find Sean standing in front of the hearth, clutching his right arm in his left.

He was motionless, the longshoreman noticed, dazed, even, as blood trickled down his side. 

“Good morning,” the older man muttered with a yawn.

The baker turned around only slightly before returning his gaze to the portrait in front of him.

“Hello,” he sighed.

“Looks like we all made it.”

Sean shrugged. “I suppose so.”

Stretching out his arms, huffing at the pain in his spine, Julian asked, “I take it your arm’s not feeling any better?”

“Not by much.”

“Not even with the bandages?” the longshoreman asked in a low tone.

Sean shook his head. “No—I don’t know why you thought they would do anything.”

“My apolog—”

“Save your breath. They’re roses, Julian, and the thorns are growing into my skin. No blasted bandages are going to help that—nothing will. Didn’t you hear Macca?”

The longshoreman flushed under the scrutiny of his brother, his stomach filling with a terrible and familiar cold.

“Sean, I truly am—”

The baker shot him a warning glance, and feeling as though maggots were crawling into his eyes, Julian turned them away.

With a sigh, Sean went on talking, settling himself in the chair to the left of the sofa.

“What would you think if I took the portrait of the scotsman from its frame?”   
  
Julian tapped his foot.

“What reason would you have for doing so?”   
  
“God,” the baker muttered, again filling the longshoreman’s stomach with fear. “I just want to figure out what he meant to say to us.”   
  
“I thought you had given up on figuring things out,” the older man whispered.

Sean bit the inside of his cheek, partly because he needed something to do as he thought, and partly to keep his mind from the pain in his arm.

“I’m not sure,” he said quietly. “I wish I could bring myself to stop—more than anything. But…”

He shook his head.

“I’m just not that strong. I suppose I’m an analytical sort of fellow, yes?”   
  
“I would say so.”   
  
“So I cannot give it up then,” the baker sighed. “No matter how much pain it causes me.”   
  
With a low hum, Julian mumbled, “I’m not sure how good of a worldview that is.”   
  
“It’s worked for twenty-five years thus far.”   
  
With a nod, the older man decided to drop the conversation there.

Sean was one of those folks with an edge for debate, but in those long, painful days, Julian was growing more frightened of him then fond.

The longshoreman would never admit it to the young man, of course, but he kept him awake at night, his head  filled with worry.   


It was as though Julian was six years old again, honestly—jumping at every quick movement and drowning himself in worry every time someone expressed any sort of disapproval towards him.

He had thought for many years by that point that he had gotten over such trivial matters, having sorted them out for the latter half of the previous decade, but upon seeing such changes occur in his younger brother, he realized that he had been wrong.

He noticed that Sean had, in the past week or so, grown very defensive.    
He was not a man that often expressed his emotions, as few men in their bloodline were, but when he grew angry, it seemed, he took no issue with offering snarky remarks to everyone around him, along with the occasional rant dissecting every flaw in a person and/or their logic.

This would not be such a problem, Julian thought to himself, if the young man did not look so much like his father.

See, John was notorious in the longshoreman’s memory for two things—the first, of course, was forsaking him and his mother to run away with an Oriental pirate lady. 

And the second thing, the one that seemed to impact Julian more, was his unpredictable and incredibly outward-facing fits of rage.

He would yell, scream, drink, taunt, and sometimes plainly strike across the cheek anyone that so much as glanced in his direction from the wrong angle.

And looking at his brother in those days, carefully studying his movements and patterns of speech, Julian was starting to have trouble figuring out where the baker ended and the quartermaster began.

That’s not to say that he felt the two were completely similar, of course, or even that Sean was anywhere near his father’s levels of inconsolable passive-aggression. 

Julian was only beginning to notice the similarities between the two, how under pressure both of them would shatter like glass—shards of their stress cutting the flesh of those standing around them.

It was a strange thing, he thought, considering the young man only knew his father for the first five years of his life.

But that only made it all the more frightening.

Deciding he had better things to spend his time on than worrying himself to death, Julian asked, “How long have you been awake?”   
  
“Oh,” Sean sighed, holding the framed portrait of the scotsman in his hands. “I lost track of it after the second chime of the clock.”   
  
The longshoreman’s eyes widened.

And then, with sudden memory, he muttered, “Merry Christmas.”   
  
“And to you,” the baker nodded.

There was a still silence, then, before Sean continued, “Perhaps something is written beneath the frame.”   
  
“I doubt it.”

“I don’t know how useful of a skill doubt is these days, really. I used to doubt the existence of spirits.”   
  
“Ah, you make a good point.”   


“So do you think I should…?”   
  
“If you feel you should. I truly have no opinion.”

“Then I shall.”   
  
With bold determination, ignoring the shooting pain up his arm, the young man pried open the frame, and from the empty disk inside, removed the drawing.

He inspected it for a moment, bringing it close to his eyes and further away, before sighing.

“Well?” Julian asked, curious.

“It’s certainly him,” the baker answered. “But I can’t tell you much more than that.”   
  
“He ought to wink at us, that’s what I think.”   
  
“Aye,” Sean laughed. Waving the paper in the air he cried, “Hey, Mister Scotsman! Give us some kind of a sign!”   
Sighing, the longshoreman muttered, “As if we need another.”   
  
“I know…”   
  
And then, his lips curling into a frown, Julian followed up, “Have you tried pulling them out?”

“The roses?”   
  
“Indeed.”   
  
Sean shrugged as he returned the picture to the frame and the frame to the mantle.

“Well, I just figured they’d have the same effect as the ones above my hearth. If you take out one, another will appear.”  
  
“Or worse,” Julian added. “ _ More _ .”   
  
Sean nodded. “Like a hydra’s head… And I’m no surgeon, but I think if I did manage to pull them out, I would end up bleeding to death.”

At the mention of death, the two returned to their uncomfortable silence.

It was a shadow that loomed over them, it seemed, over their whole company.

Or perhaps not over them, per say—but above.

It was a strange thing, you see.

Somehow, with just a couple of words, both of the men’s minds turned to the same subject.

They saw themselves in the bedchamber up the stairs, staring at the old white walls with a melancholy sort of apprehension, for inside, they knew, laid their dying sister.

She had promised him, Sean thought.

She had promised that she would be alright.

How in God’s name he believed her—or anyone, after every broken promise that had been made before him—he wasn’t sure.

It was foolish of him, really, but once upon a time, he had honestly thought that he could have things in life.    
If he just worked hard enough, the logic flowed, if he just was willing to put in the effort, then he would be able to fix things. 

He would be able to figure things out.

But now, in the span of exactly twenty-eight days, he had discovered the truth.

The truth was that life was not a ladder to climb. It was an intricate and unevenly proportioned web, as tangled and as complicated as the roses growing into his shoulder, and  _ someone _ , no matter where a man laid in the mess, was always above him.

There was always someone pulling the strings, always someone standing in his way.

And being the bastard and fatherless son of the Witches of New York, Sean was very entangled in that web, so much so that he could not move.

For some people—Macca, Julian, Kyoko—his former philosophy worked.

They could work for things and earn them.

But through fate, or God, or luck, or whatever else, Sean could not.

It left a bitter taste in his mouth, admittedly, but the bare truth was never exactly sweet.

“Kyoko isn’t going to make it,” he murmured.

Julian sighed.

“Come now,” he said.    
  
“Take a look at her,” the baker snapped. “She’s as good as dead by this point! And I might as well be, too.”   
  
His face turning pale, the longshoreman quickly asked, “Do you feel ill now, as well?”   
  
Sean tossed his head back, annoyed, but cut off his brother before the apology could leave his lips.

“It’s these blasted roses!” he cried. “Sooner or later, they’re going to bleed me dry. It doesn’t even matter if I keep them in.”   
  
Julian’s eyes went wide.

“Do you really think so?”   
  
“Of course I do.”

A sudden incomprehensible weight fell upon the older man’s chest. His brain was overcome with anxiety—not the passive, ever-present sort that filled his day-to-day life, but that special kind of sudden, intense panic, the realization that a situation was much more dire than originally thought.

“I never thought of that before,” he muttered. 

Sean bit down hard on his lip.

Of course he hadn’t.

“But you’ll be alright in the end.”   
  
Julian laughed a visibly distressed type of laugh—the only time he had let anything resembling the sound leave his lips in thirty-one years.

“You have to be!”   
  
“And you’re going to enforce that  _ how _ ?”   
  
His face growing red, recognizing that he was losing control over his own emotions, as he so rarely did, the longshoreman raged, “We’ll fall apart with you!”

“But if Kyoko dies, then i—”   
  
“For God’s sake, Sean! I can’t— I can’t  _ do this  _ without you!”   
  
Sean drew back.

For as calm and collected as his brother often appeared to be, he seemed to be losing his mind.

He spoke with quick, hot breaths, his words coming out in sporadic bursts as his foot tapped like a metronome gone wild.

“You can’t die!” he continued. “My God, if you  _ and  _ Kyoko die—Jesus Christ, you can’t leave me here by myself, I can’t do it!”   
  
“Get a hold of yourself!” the baker cried, not used to seeing the man so distraught. “I didn’t mean it!”   
  
“How could you  _ not _ ?!”   
  
“I just—God, Julian, calm down!”

The longshoreman let out a long, speedy string of apologies, and drawing his palm across his right cheek, using the pads of his fingers to try and grab onto his skin, he whispered, “We’re all going to die here…”

“Stop it!” Sean insisted. “Stop saying that; you’re scaring me!”

Springing himself forth from the sofa, pacing like a mad dog about the parlor, Julian shook his head.

“My apologies,” he began. “I can’t, I just—I can’t—”

Stopping by the window, his shoulders slumped.

“Why in God’s name did I even come here?”   
  
Sean crossed his arms, wincing at the pain in his right as he let his weight fall to one side of the chair.

His mind cloudy, he finally asked the question brewing in his brain for days.  
  
“You didn’t really want to see me, did you?”

Julian froze.

Turning around, his eyes squinted, he whispered, “Of course I did! God, I’ve seen you maybe three times in my entire life—everything else has been letters…”   
  
Sean stared at the ground.

And then, his tone changing to something much more serious, the longshoreman asked, “What are you doing?”

“I’m just sitting here.”

“ _ Why did you ask that _ ?”   
  
Sean’s head snapped up, alarmed by the mixture of fear and anger he heard in his brother’s voice.

“I—”   
  
Julian didn’t move a single muscle.

“I don’t know…”   
  
“Don’t you lie to me.”   
  
Sean squirmed in his seat.

“I’m not!”   
  
Pointing his finger out at the young man, Julian said through clenched teeth, “You listen, and you listen well. I don’t know what you think, I don’t know what you take me for, but there’s not any way in Hell I’ll take that kind of shit, not from you!”

“ _ What _ ?” the baker asked, equal parts defensive and frightened.

“I’m not going to stand here,” Julian hissed. “And allow you to guilt me into doing  _ anything _ .”

Sean’s face fell so far he could hear Judas Iscariot ask him what the weather was like that day.

“Is that what it sounds like I’m doing?!” he asked. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Why don’t  _ you  _ go and pay a visit to Father’s killer? Why don’t  _ you  _ watch your life flash before your eyes for a second? Why don’t  _ you  _ nearly drink poison? Why don’t  _ you  _ invite everyone to their dying ground! We’ll see how good  _ you’ll  _ feel, then, you bugger!”

“You stop that right now,” Julian said, his words coming out choppy and staggered.

“Why are you so angry at me?” Sean asked, his face hot as Hell beneath him as his voice cracked. “You were the one who said you shouldn’t have come here!”   
  
“I  _ know  _ when I’m being manipulated, Sean!”   
  
“What reason do I have to manipulate you?” the baker cried, desperate. “You are my brother!”

“And?” 

“And I would never do that! Why in Hell do you think I would?”   
  
Julian relaxed the fists he hadn’t noticed he’d been clenching.

Swallowing, he realized he could never tell the young man the truth—not after what he had done after he had gotten into that argument with Yoko.

“I…”   
  
He drew in a deep breath.

He was the elder brother, he thought.

If there was anyone that would keep Sean intact, it was him.

If he was calm, Sean was calm.

If he was alright, then the baker would be too.

He had spent his whole life keeping his secrets—one more wouldn’t hurt him.

“You’ll have to forgive me,” he sighed. “I am just—or— _ we all  _ are in a very stressful situation at the moment. I don’t want to lose anyone.”

He met his brother’s eyes.

“Especially not you.”   
  
“So your solution is to accuse me of manipulating you?” the young man deadpanned.

“No, that isn’t i—”   
  
“Well done.”   
  
“Sean,” Julian said. “You’ve got to cut that out—acting like you’re the king of France. That isn’t going to do you any favors.”   
  
“You don’t need favors when you’ll be dead by the end of the night.”   
  
The longshoreman brought his hand to his temple.

“I’m not going to argue with you,” he sighed. “Just know that I’ve been manipulated many times over, and I would not like to see it happen again.”   
  
“You won’t,” Sean assured.

“I sure hope not. Again, I apologize for having lost myself there. I think the stress is getting to my head.”   
  
“You aren’t the only one,” the baker sighed. “But Julian?”   
  
“Yes?”   
  
“Please never do that again—whatever that was, with the pacing, and the panicking. That was mad.”   
  
The longshoreman raised his eyebrows.

“I’ll try my best, love.”

After a pause he added, “Do you forgive me?”   
  
Sean shrugged. 

“Of all people, you’re the one I can never hold a grudge against.”

Smiling a bit, Julian simply responded, “The one and only.”   
  
His brother laughed at this, and hearing him happy, the longshoreman felt he had done right.

But he could not escape the guilt creeping over his shoulder.

For looking at the young man, his sharp nose and rounded jaw, and hearing him, his voice nasal and accusatory, he had been reminded of the one thing he knew Sean hated more than anything and anyone on Earth—his similarity to their father.

Fortunately for Julian, it seemed as though everyone was walking (or in Macca’s case, being carried) on eggshells that day.

Things were tense between the company—the understatement of the year, of course—and it seemed that if anyone’s emotions were improperly regulated, for even a second, absolute chaos would erupt.

Which, of course, it did—not just in the skirmish between the longshoreman and the baker, but also between Ringo and George, after the former had pushed the latter to finally speak to his son.

Sir Harrison naturally grew very upset at his proposal, insisting that the cecaelia allow him to fight his own battles for a change, to which Ringo responded that fighting his own battles had nearly led to Sean’s murder.

At that point, George became even more angry, and, in the midst of a coughing fit, stormed out of the parlor.

He would get around to talking to Dhani, he thought. But there was no way the octopus-man could expect him to while simultaneously waiting for the ghost(s) of his dead friends to return to Earth.

And besides, Ringo had no place in their relationship. It was selfish of him to try and push himself into it, no matter what justification he gave.

Now, it was true that George had been both avoiding and watching Dhani like a hawk for some time, speaking to him only when he had to and noticing his every move with unwavering concentration, as though his son were a tiger walking towards him.

But that was because he wasn’t sure what else to do. 

If Dhani had lost himself to the point that he would try and take another man’s life, then George felt that he had exhausted every possible option to try to fix his head.

Ringo was a kind-hearted fellow, he knew, but he sometimes found himself offering unsolicited advice in situations he knew nothing about.

He could berate the old man all he liked on how he was handling the demons that so led his son to kill, for example, but that was incomparably different from watching your own child do something so egregious, knowing that you had raised him to do just the opposite.

It was hard to look such a reality in the eye, and when you finally did, it was even harder to know what to do.

The problem was that Ringo dealt in hypotheticals—he spoke of  _ should _ s and  _ could _ s and  _ would have been _ s.

But he was not in that camp of people who spoke of  _ is _ es and  _ are _ s and  _ has been _ s, and so his words were spoken from a mute mouth.

Of course, George held no malice against him. Ringo was his friend, and had been for many years by then.

The old man knew he was only trying to help; it was a part of his nature. It was something he had to do.

And considering there may have only been a couple of hours before Ethelein returned, Sir Harrison had no choice but to declare a truce between himself and the octopus-man. Consider it a survival strategy.

And speaking of such, I lead you back to Julian.

It was around eight in the afternoon that he made the trek up the stairs, for the fifth time that day, to check in on Kyoko, whose condition was only proving to worsen as time went on.

Now, his stepmother had done a similar thing, visiting her even more so than himself. Several times, they had even run into each other.

But what made that time different, at around eight in the afternoon on Christmas Day, was that the old woman was not standing in the bedchamber, as she so often was.

She was standing outside of it, her hand on the wall in front of her, her eyes closed as she let out a sigh.

The sight nearly made Julian jump out of his skin.

Rushing up the stairs, he asked, “Has something happened?”   
  
Yoko was startled by this, of course, and turned around quickly, her hand quickly removed from the cold wall.

Seeing that she did not provide him with an answer, Julian repeated, “Has something happened to Kyoko?”   
  
“Nay,” the woman assured him. “Nay, she is alright for the time being.”   
  
“Oh,” Julian said. “Very good.”   
  
For a moment, the two were silent.

And then, trying to break the fragile quiet, the longshoreman asked, “What   
are you doing, then?”

“Thinking,” Yoko answered.

“I see. In that case, I’m sorry to interrupt.”   
  
“Why, is there something you need?” the widow asked, her eyebrows raising.

“Oh, no. I had just come to pay a visit to Kyoko.”

Pursing his lips, he added, “How is she doing?”   
  
Yoko nodded slowly.

“She was sleeping, the last I saw her. But that was about an hour ago—maybe more. She may be awake by now.”   
  
“Oh,” A blank look came over Julian’s face. Slinking back down the stairs, he muttered, “I suppose I should come back another time, then.”

“Wait,” Yoko called out.

He turned to her.

Straightening her posture, she continued, “Do not go yet—I’d like to speak to you.”

The longshoreman drew back a bit, at the proposition, knowing full well that whatever the widow had in mind, it couldn’t have been good.

As was very apparent, you see—increasingly so—the two were not cordial to one another out of any sort of genuine camaraderie.

Their relationship was based off of one principle, and one only: that of John Lennon.

He was Julian’s father and Yoko’s husband, and so that made them each other’s stepson and stepmother, respectively.

It was him they shared—in fact, he was about the only thing they had in common. 

But he was gone, of course, and in his place was Sean.

The baker filled the role that was necessary for the two of them to pay any mind to one another, for better or for worse. 

On one hand, it meant that the two would keep in contact.

But on the other, it meant a continuation of the agreement the two had worked out when John was still alive.

Do it for him, so it went.

Get along for him.

Fight as little as possible for him.

It’s not hard to imagine that when he (or Sean) was taken out of the equation, either in the grave or in another room, things became much less clear.

So Julian was very hesitant to talk to the woman, especially after the onslaught of disagreements they had had in the past month.

She noticed this, of course—she would have been a fool not to expect it.

So, to reassure him, she added, “It shall only take a moment.”   
  
He nodded, but did not move.

“Very well, then,” he mumbled. “Say what you must.”

Yoko lifted her head higher, and after drawing in a breath, began, “With everything—Kyoko’s illness, Sean’s roses, the upcoming arrival of Ethelein,” 

She swallowed.

“And others—I suggest a truce between the two of us.”   
  
Julian cocked an eyebrow.

“Were we at war?”

“Not that kind of truce,” the woman stressed. “All I mean is that we agree not to lose our heads with one another. I think we both remember what happened Monday evening, and I don’t want that to repeat itself.

“It can’t,” she said plainly. “It simply can’t. If it does, then I’m near certain it shall be our downfall.”   
  
“I can’t just agree with everything you do or say,” Julian reminded, utterly exhausted.

“And you don’t have to,” Yoko added. “I just want you to promise to try and keep your composure. For Kyoko’s sake.”   
  
She paused.

“For Sean’s.”   
  
“And you will do the same?” Julian asked, skeptical.

“I will.”   
  
“And you will try to adhere to it, as opposed to simply stating so?”   
  
“Only if you do so, as well.”   
  
The longshoreman considered this.

  
Speaking in a cautious yet determined voice, he resolved, “Then I agree, with the clause that I may back out at any time, should I find it is being used as a tool to keep me from doing things you don’t want me to do.”

“Which it isn’t,” Yoko assured. “It’s a preventative measure to keep the two of us from stabbing each other.

She didn’t need to go on, Julian thought.

He knew the rest.

_ It’s a preventative measure to keep the two of us from stabbing each other in the event Kyoko and/or Sean dies. _

If it were to happen, he thought, then the natural course of action would be for him and his stepmother to blame each other.

An alliance, then, while potentially leading to war, was a smart choice, and could even be kept after (if) the two others recovered.

“Then it is done,” he said plainly. 

“I was hoping you would say that.”   
  
The two stood, again, in silence for a second.

But it was not the stepson nor the stepmother who broke it.

Instead, a voice called, meek and pleading, from behind the closed door, “Mother…”

They turned to it nearly automatically, and carrying herself with a special breed of maternal concern, Yoko opened the door and stepped inside the bedchamber, Julian trailing along behind her.

In the roughly two hours since he had last seen the woman, the longshoreman thought, she had somehow worsened beyond recognition.

Her eyes were glazed over, staring with no intent towards the ceiling. Her hair was matted and tangled, her skin as white as the shift covering it. Her lips were parted just slightly, and from them, the monotone voice called a second time, nearly unrecognizably to Julian, “Mother.”

She almost looked like a doll, he thought—white as porcelain, glassy eyes held wide-open, and a step from being completely unresponsive.   
Yoko grabbed a hold of the bedpost. 

“Is there something you need, dear?”

Kyoko moved only her lips, not even bothering to look at the woman.

“Where is my mother?”   
  
The widow was silent for a moment, her face contorting, and then, in barely a whisper, she said, “I’m right here.”

But the doll-woman did not listen.

“My mother…” she muttered. “I want my mother.”  
  
“Kyoko, I’m right here!”   
  
Yoko grabbed hold of her daughter’s hand, cold as ice, and frowned.

Julian simply stood unnerved on the other side of the bed.

“Where is my mother? I— I want my mother!”

By that point, Yoko was desperate.

She leaned in close towards the woman, straining her muscles to kneel down and brush her hair away from her face.

“I am right here, Kyoko,” she said, trying to conceal the cracks in her voice. “I’m right here with you, and I’ll stay here.”

“I want… my mother.”   
  
Yoko’s hands shook.

Not turning away from her daughter, not even blinking, she called, “Julian.”

The man did not have time to respond.

In a grave tone, she instructed, “Go and fetch the others.”   
  


_ 5 Minutes. _


	59. A Thing of Nought

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the company is called to Kyoko’s bedside.

It only took twenty seconds before the entire company was in Kyoko’s bedchamber.

Of course, I suppose it makes sense, considering Julian gathered them by bolting down the stairs screaming for everyone to come as quickly as they could.

But he never told them  _ why  _ they had to come—and in Sean’s mind, that was the scariest thing of all.

When he stepped into the room, however, he was quick to figure it out.

His sister, lying like a doll in its coffin, was on the brink of death.

Seeing her, her tangled black hair and her frightened eyes, he drew his bleeding hand over his mouth, his face growing near as pale as hers.

The rest of the company did the same, some freezing in the doorway at the very sight of the girl.

Their irises grew twofold in size, their faces fell to the floor. 

They had each come so close to their deaths before—on the ship, in Agratsch, in Madras, in the harbor, in the parlor… but now, they thought, now it was right in front of them, laid bare as the deserted rosebox.

For many, it was a mixture of fear and spite that grabbed them. 

Why did it have to be Kyoko, they wondered, and not themselves? 

And in the same regard, wasn’t it better that it was the young woman and not any of them?

The men and women of the bedchamber planted their feet deep into the wood of the floor.

And then, completing the scene, Ringo strolled inside, carrying a frightened and yet unwavered Macca in his arms.

The siren did not so much as flinch as the company, who had formed in an arc around the bed, parted like the Red Sea to allow him a view of the dying girl.

Instead, he simply pursed his lips, his brow furrowed in utter seriousness as he instructed, “Ringo, set me down.”

The cecaelia nodded quickly, and in a collaborative effort between himself and Sir Harrison, pulled out the chair from the desk in the room, and set the siren atop it.

He was now sitting directly across from the bed, watching in apprehension as the doll stared and her mother wept over her.

There was no sound in the room for a moment, apart from Yoko’s incessant crying, which was only worsened by Kyoko’s repeated, slowing calls for her mother.

She was as a child—a newborn babe, even, reaching out for her mother, craving her touch, and yet unable to feel it.

And so there was silence.

Until, sick of the sight, George cleared his throat, and in a quiet, respectful tone, asked, “Yoko, do I have your permission to read from the Bible to her?”

The old woman faltered, her eyes wild as she turned to her old crewmate.

“I—”

She blinked rapidly, and then, with a staggered cry, uttered, “I’m not sure…”   
  
“It’s what she would want,” Julian said, trying his best to hide the vulnerability in his voice. “I say you are completely free to do so.”   
  
So as not to stir any further controversy, before picking up the book on the desk, George looked once more at Yoko.

And seeing her nod, he reached for the brown leather cover.

Now, on first thought, you may believe that it had been quite some time since the old Sir Harrison had touched the holy book, having abandoned it long ago for scripts of the Ancient Indian type, but in that you would be very mistaken.

George made no distinction, you see, between any sort of religious text, and for that matter, between any god or deity. 

They were all the same to him—God, Krishna, Allah, YHVH, any being that could be dreamed of. For he was not a man to believe and denounce all nonbelievers—he was a man to believe and learn.

He owned a good number of holy books in his home, with both him and his wife enjoying the study of such. 

And while he had not brought his own Bible to New York, he had spent quite some time there reading the Lennons’ (which he did find ironic for them to have.)

And having read it in those long, treacherous days, he knew exactly where in the book to turn.

“The Book of Isaiah,” he spoke in a low voice. “Chapter forty-one, verse eight:”   
  
Dhani held steadfast to his father’s arm, his head shaking back and forth, unable to comprehend the scene before him.

He could not help but feel responsible, he thought, for the poor girl’s death.

His father was reading from the King James Bible, after all—he was trying to protect the woman with words written by the same man that had convinced Dhani to kill.

“Be thou, Israel,” the old man began in a clear voice. “Art my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham, my friend.”

Ringo closed his eyes tight.

Only once in his life had he ever witnessed death which affected him so.

All he could think of, standing on his bone-white tentacles in that bedchamber, was awakening on that horrible morning to find his mate’s hollow body.

It was bad enough, he thought, to watch grief affect him.

But to see it affect Macca—as Iyera’s did—and now, in the advent of Kyoko’s death, every member of that company, he knew not how he would ever cope. 

“Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the Earth, and called thee from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant; I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away.”

Macca could not bring himself to shed a single tear for the woman.

It was not that he hoped she would die, of course, but after everything else that had happened to his company, he seemed to have been leached of every emotion but fear.

And what he was afraid of was Ethelein. He would be coming at some point in the next four hours, and no one knew when.

But if he were to come and find his company incomplete…

There was no telling what would happen.

Now, he thought, there was only fear-frozen possibility.

“Fear thou not, for I am with thee: be not dismayed, for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee;” Here the old man paused, trying to regain his voice from what was undoubtedly a crack in it. “Yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.”    
  
Julian could do nothing.

No matter how badly he wished to kick, scream, shout, or shut his eyes and vanish into the void—he could not.

All he could do was stand with his eyes wide open, a bitter resentment in his heart.

At what, he wasn’t exactly sure.

It may have been God, he thought, that he was angry at, blasphemous as it was.

Yes, he was angry at Him for having brought him to such ruin, for having brought him and Kyoko into such a cruel world at all.

He had been born unto a helpless dairy maid and a fickle sailor, the product of a loveless marriage that from its very conception (his very conception) was doomed to fail.

He had not met his own father until he was four years of age, and when he had, he had found him to be one of those angry, sometimes violent sort of men. 

He was one of those men who would leave their women and leave their sons at the drop of a hat, and then look at them ten years later, when they had finally reunited, as though they were dirt on his shoe buckle.

And Kyoko—the girl not unlike himself, born into a loveless marriage between a captain and a playwright, sent, for long stretches of time, to toil with her mother at sea.

When at first the children met, they had hated one another, refusing to acknowledge the other as their step-sibling, and preferring to pretend they were some sort of beast.

But over time, they had bonded, and over time, they realized that they had much more in common than they had previously thought.

Then the girl left, moving with the boy’s father to New York.

And for nearly thirty years after, he had lived under the assumption that she was dead as a doorknob.

But upon learning the truth—that she was alive and well— she was to be stripped from him, fallen ill in a matter of days, and then peeled from his side like burnt flesh.

How much of a  _ dunce  _ was he, he wondered, believing earnestly that after losing his father the moment he got him back, he would be able to keep his sister?

There was no denying it—his first true friend, robbed from him at too young an age, and returned to him at one too late, would within a moment be a soulless husk of a woman, her husband a widower and her children motherless.

Still, he was too proud to cry.

He would not do so, he swore, until he saw the very last of the life leave her eyes.

“Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing; and that they strive with thee shall perish.”

Hearing this, Sean could not help but burst into tears.

It was foolish of him, he knew, a childish sort of thing.

But he truly could not keep himself from doing so, for all he thought of, hearing the verse, was that it was undoubtedly true.

He was not one of those fellows to believe in God, mind you, but that did not restrict him in realizing the accuracy of such a statement— _ all they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confused _ .

Mere days ago, he thought, he had angered his sister, bickering pointlessly over the extent of mercy, insulting her as though it was some sort of game to win.

And standing at the edge of her bed, next to Julian on her direct left, he was more ashamed of himself than he ever had been before, more confused than when he was a young boy, sitting half-awake in that very bed as he wondered who outside his window was screaming, and why they sounded so much like his father.

It seemed to him a rule, an immutable law of the world, even, that in the hour of his loved ones’ death, he would be the one working to their detriment.

When he was five, he had led that madman straight to his father.

And when he was twenty-five, the last conversation he had ever had with his sister—who he had so rarely spoken to—had been one peppered with insults against her name and ideas.

She had not even rebuked him, he thought.

But at the final hour—in those final moments before she was to breathe her last, he was unable to apologize to her.

There was so much he could say—that he was sorry for ever having ignored her, for insulting her, that he wished he could have had the time to get to know her.

Wasn’t that what he was looking forward to, he thought, when he had penned that letter to her from his mother?

Wasn’t he looking forward to meeting her, and her to meeting him?   
  
Now, it seemed, the only thing she was looking forward to meeting was her end.

“Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them, even them that contended with thee: they that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought.”

Yoko wept only bitter tears, murmuring foreign pleas over her daughter’s chilled hands as her spine ached and arched.

It felt as though her world, that which she had painstakingly built over John’s dead body, rife with tremendous pain and great triumph, was crashing down around her, snapping like a twig in a typhoon as that old familiar grief re-entered her home.

She could not leave anything else behind, she thought.

After leaving her mother, her father, and her siblings to set sail on the open sea, after leaving her husband and her homeland in the pursuit of true, unabashed freedom, she found that she was not free in any sense of the word.

She was a slave, she thought, bound by strife to that black-robed rider of death.

She could convince herself she was free from her chains, free from her grief, but sooner or later, she would try and move, and would find her hands still bound. 

Something would appear in front of her—a candle, for example, a girl, or a bird—and she would try and break free, removing herself from her guilt.

But as she reached out to that white light of acceptance, it would morph into something evil.

The candle would turn to molten wax, sealing her forever in the notion that her husband still lived on, if not in the flesh, then through his son.

The girl would turn to porcelain, a doll so easily broken that if she felt the slightest pain in the head, she would be irreparable within three days.

And the bird, that black-feathered and black-hearted raven, would turn to Death himself, spilling its blood upon the cloth in her house so as to seep itself into every crevice, crack, and corner.

Spilling its own blood on Kyoko’s knife, it had robbed her of that which flowed through her body, turning her white as a cloud, cold as the snow that it poured down.

And stealing her blood, it implanted it in Sean’s body, wrapping its long, thin fingers around him in the form of roses, pinching and tearing into his flesh, dropping blood from his hand like rain from a roof as an offering to whatever wicked being it served.

But the worst part of it all, she had thought, was that she had been warned. 

Across all of the month, the raven had seemed to call to her, flying wildly about the room as it condemned her daughter to death, lifting itself high into the air as it showed her the blood spilled upon her husband’s spectacles, begging and taunting her to never allow that blood to be spilled again.

And yet, in the advent of her deafness, it had been.

And in that final hour, as she finally realized, she was too late.

She had sentenced her very own company to death, she thought, too stubborn in her ways to ever listen.

So it was not only for her daughter that she wept, but for all those she had let down—her father, her mother, her siblings, each and every one of her husbands, her son, her stepson, herself, and her crew.

Their blood, she thought, was on her hands, spread like paint over a canvass across her floors, her walls, her ceiling. 

And there were not enough rugs in the world to cover it all.

“For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand,” George continued, in spite of the sorrow. “Saying unto thee, fear not; I will help thee.”

With this his tone became more uneven, his breathing staggered and sputtering as he continued, through wheezes and coughs, “Fear not… thou worm Jacob, and ye men of— Isr— of Israel…”    
  
“Father,” Dhani uttered with a gasp.

The old man swatted his hand away.

“I will  _ help thee _ , saith the Lord, and thy— ”

His face paled whiter than the walls.

Dhani reached out to grab onto the man’s arm, clutching it tight in his grasp as an immeasurable panic filled his being.

George drew his hand to his mouth, shaking indelibly as he hacked blood from his throat.

Still, he persisted.  
  
“And the redeemer… the ho— the Holy One of Isra—”

He gasped, unable to breathe, and then, doubling over, garnering everyone’s attention, a rush of bright blue feathers spewed from his mouth, coated thick in both mucus and blood.

Dhani screamed like a maid at the sight of a mad dog, hysterical in every sense of the word as he drew back, far away from the man, searching for that gleaming metal at the end of the clay, if not to be his alone, then only to soothe him.

Sean merely cried out, not in surprise, but in agony, as he could feel the thorns on both sides of his flesh meet, tearing through veins and muscles to run a slick trail of blood from his shoulder down to his fingernails, already dirtied and soiled with the dried liquid.

And Kyoko, eyes peeled back and pupils dilated, drew in a sharp breath.

In all of their pain and strife, the company paused at the sound, hoping, for that moment, that she might rise well and speak to them.

A horrible second passed.

And then another.

And then a third.

And hearing nothing, Yoko drew back, her eyes wide, focused on the woman and the woman alone.

In her hands, Kyoko’s fingers drooped.

Her face grew very calm—unnaturally so, and it became clear almost immediately, that by all accounts and observable facts, according to each and every witness, seen with eyes on Heaven and on Earth, that Kyoko Cox was dead. 

The clock downstairs ticked to precisely eight hours and twenty-seven minutes.

Before her mother could open her mouth and mourn her, the doll sat bolt upright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STARTED AT THE TOP NOW WE HEEEERE
> 
> But in all seriousness— I remember promising at 666 hits I would see you all at 911, and I’m pleased to see we meet again. I never thought I’d get this far, honest.  
> Here’s shooting for 999.


	60. Two as One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys I'm gonna warn you now--this one is 7,000 words. I tell you what, this has been the hardest one BY FAR to write, but I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. So, I'll give you an imaginary cookie in the end notes, because today, I'm on PC.

The light, dim as it was in the room, nearly blinded the creature as it opened its eyes, its pupils dilating to the size of sinkholes as its senses observed the flood of input.

There were scents to smell, noises to hear, things to see, and fresh air to breathe in.

An overwhelming warmth caressed its flesh, draped loosely in light cloth and dark hair, and for the first time in an unknowable amount of days, it felt a soft rush of air move into its lungs.

It wanted to cry, it was so happy hearing those voices and seeing those faces.

But then, its eyes adjusting to the light, the ringing in its ears fading, it remembered what it was there for.

And that was not to cry or to laugh, to take in its surroundings, or even to make amends.

It was there for only one reason, and that was to finish what it started, at any cost, through any means, so that it might have pleased those beings greater than itself, so that all would be in perfect order.

Directly across from it, sitting in an old wooden chair, was a siren of Na’atsji, an old man with sunken, frightened eyes adorned with metals and pearls.

He was a successful member of his tribe, it thought, if his decorations did say so.

Most likely, he was the sort of man everyone in the area adored, a pillar of the community, that infuriating type of person with seemingly no flaws.

He was smart, he was loving, he was filled to the brim with humor and wit, and most importantly of all—he was a talented hunter.

But, as the white glove on his left hand signaled, he was a widower, a deeply sorrowful man who had loved and lost and learned to live in loneliness. 

How wonderful, the beast thought, to see life in those sunken eyes again.

And to the creature’s left, it noticed an old land-dweller woman kneeling haphazardly on the floor, the sort with narrow eyes and a face resembling the texture of wet sand.

She was fully covered, as all of her species was, wearing vestments exclusively in an ink-black hue, perhaps to match the color of her hair.

Her skin seemed pale, not due to a lack of sun, but a lack of blood, her eyes wide as she dug her fingers into the floor.

How lucky, the creature thought, was it to be able to see the light bounce off of that skin again?

Now, between the two were another two land-dwellers, both men, both with the same smug eyes and thick eyebrows, both wearing terrified gapes on their panic-struck faces.

A mound of blood-speckled blue feathers laid at the elder’s side, his hands trembling as the younger supported his weight, his eyes uncertain as they focused on the creature.

How strange, the creature noted, to see two of them there.

Seeing their faces—that of the old man, the siren, and the old woman, it was at last reminded who its company truly was, what kind of people they were, what brought them joy and what brought them sorrow, their strengths and weaknesses.

Tucking its legs to the side on the bed, its head tilted towards the woman on the ground, it bowed its head and spoke.

“My captain.”

Kyoko opened her eyes and found herself sitting with her knees tucked to her side on the banks of a river.

It was a familiar place to her—the edge of the Hudson, where she used to stand with her stepfather, her doll in hand, and watch the sirens go by.

The sun beat down in the sky; it was a muggy morning to be sure, the type that only grew hotter as the day went by, and by the afternoon peaked to a point where one could start to see manipulations in the air.

And so she was thankful for the river beside her, so that it might cool her with its soft earth and plentiful water.

Truly, it would have been a wonderful sight—if she could remember how she got there.

Come to think of it, she thought, she could hardly remember anything.

In her mind, the very last thing she had done was tell her mother in a childishly needy sort of way that she was not well enough to eat her breakfast, that if she so much as smelled any food in her bedchamber, she would surely vomit. 

And after that… she couldn’t figure it out. 

She supposed she must have fallen asleep.

But then how did she end up by the riverbank? And in the Summer, nonetheless. 

One thing was for certain—it didn’t seem like she would be leaving anytime soon. 

This was not some ravenous dream she was in, filled with action and excitement, nor was it some dull dream, one she would awake from soon and, given enough time, have no memory of.

No, the space Kyoko found herself in was some sort of limbo—a buffer zone between Earth and Hell, sprinkled with just enough distinction from her own land that it was noticeable, but not enough that it was unbearable.

Surrounded on all sides by trees and water, with no known escape and the sun beating down on her back, the woman said a little prayer as she stepped towards the river.

It seemed to be water inside, she thought, at least from what she could see. And it didn’t seem to be of any extreme temperature, nor color, nor viscosity.

It just looked like every other body of water she had ever seen.

Instead, it was the reflection that caught her eye.

For she did not see herself inside—at least, not the version of herself she had become.

She saw a young girl with bright red cheeks, a smile on her face as her hair blew in the soft sea breeze.

Yoko drew back at the sound of the voice in her daughter.

It was of relatively even tone, a bit harsh, perhaps, but what struck her like a bow to the string of a cello was how much lower it was.

It was not the type of voice you would expect to hear from a woman’s lips, no. It was a tenor sort of sound, cadenced, with a familiar dissonance to it.

She could not put her finger on who it belonged to, but one thing was certain—the woman sitting in front of her was not her daughter.

The very vibration of such a foreign sound made her head ache.

“Who are you?” she demanded, her voice cracking. “What have you done to Kyoko?”

The girl took a slow look around the room.

“Don’t you remember me?” she asked with a hint of pain. 

On the other side of the arc, to the right of the siren, the creature saw a cecaelia, tentacles as white as a dove, his hands gripped tightly onto a silver pendant.

Their eyes meeting, the octopus-man looked as though he was about to faint—which, the creature recalled, could very well have happened. 

He was always a sickly sort of fellow, after all.

“Ringo Asmalte,” she spoke. “Tabanni Macca, George Harrison… Do you not have any memory of me? Have you forgotten who I am? Who I was?”

Swallowing, his head shaking like a madman, Macca hissed, “You stop that. I know perfectly well who you are.”

The girl’s head drifted towards the siren, tilting at an angle as she asked, “Do you?”

His chest swelling with rage, his mind riddled with anxiety the siren pressed his fingers close together.

If he wanted to be rid of the beast, he thought, then he would have to do two things.

Keep himself calm, he thought, no matter what anyone else did and find some way to distract it.

He would have to be the eye of the cyclone, the wordsmith so skilled, all visual sense disintegrated.

And so, not daring to bring his eyes to his satchel, he decided that the best way to do so was to indulge the demon—to give it the attention it so seemed to crave, to partake in whatever charade it wanted, if only to keep its eyes off of him

In a slow voice, he began, “You were born silent to a shopkeeping family in West Riddidiya.”

At this Ringo’s eyes grew wide.

He turned to George for reassurance, for some kind of confirmation that there was no possible way the sje’inn’a’e could have taken possession of Kyoko’s corpse.

But the old Sir Harrison only stared at the vessel, his eyes wide as he drew his hand to his mouth.

Some, however, were not so quiet about the realization.

His lips curled into a frown, his brow furrowed in anger, Julian felt the overwhelming urge to beat the beast bloody.

At the sight of the girl, there grew a great pain in Kyoko’s chest, a longing, perhaps for what once was.

She seemed so young, then, so innocent.

She had been unconcerned, at the time, with matters of demons, illnesses, and murders.

She had no issue with the life she lived, in an almost detrimental way, sleeping on a pirate ship and playing with swords.

In those days, she remembered how she would spend her nights and days dreaming of fantastic beasts—of winged horses and talking snakes.

But back then, that was all they ever were—figments of her imagination.

At the time, it would have seemed absolutely preposterous to her that any such beast she dreamed up—especially a speaking bird as tall as her—could ever materialize itself.

Taking a number of steps to the left and right as she thought, she found, looking into the water, that as she moved, so did the angle by which she viewed the image of herself in the water. 

Moving to the right, she noticed that in the corner of the scene stood a second person, marked by pale skin edged with a plain white shirt.

Upon seeing this second person, she began to move quicker on the riverbed, revealing more and more of his body, his neck, and his chin, curious to know who he was, until after a good couple of seconds, she could fully spot his face.

He was a young boy, his cheeks rosy as a result of the sun, and his eyes were squinted, almost closed, even, likely for the same reason. 

His mouth was held open in a very awkward way, with only one of his front teeth present as his tongue pressed against the back of his lip.

And his hair, caramel-brown, flew in every direction, complimented by his dirty off-white shirt, which was far too big for him, and was highlighted by the sun that shone above him.

He was laughing, she thought.

He was happy.

But more importantly—he was Julian.

The sje’inn’a’e, though he did not say it, was quite amused that the siren remembered such things about him. 

It brought him a sort of pleasure, really, to know that after so much time, the siren could still recall exactly where he had come from.

“That I was,” he confirmed. “And you to a medic in the east-most of Na’atsji.”

“You were conscripted into the Royal Riddidiyan Army,” Macca continued, unblinking as he spoke, just barely directing his hand to his satchel. “But you were released upon the discovery of your silence.”

Ethelein frowned.

“You remember quite a lot,” he said softly, sad as he rubbed the blanket on the bed between his fingers. “Don’t you?”

The other siren did not bother to acknowledge the question.

Moving his hand a bit quicker now, comforted in the knowledge that Ethelein was not looking at him, but still trying to hide the panic in his voice, he elaborated:

“On the day you were to return home, you were confronted by one of your comrades.”

The demon froze, but did not look at the man.

“He told you that you wouldn’t do anything without a voice—that you were nothing.”

The sje’inn’a’e frowned at the memory.

“And so on that day you returned home,” Macca continued. “You took up an apprenticeship to become a magician.”

“And a magician I did become,” the vessel whispered, a hint of scorn in his voice. “And a good one, at that.”

The other siren swallowed.

He still had yet to see him reaching into the satchel, he thought.

If he could just keep him from looking up at him, he would be golden.

“But you were never happy as one,” Macca countered. “When you were transferred to Maugtda, of all places, your chaplain assigned you to independent research—not even bothering to show you around the convent.

“You felt that your life was bound to be a dull series of transcribing spellbooks into your native tongue, sharpening your claws, and waiting for the day you could prove yourself to those who were supposed to be your equals—

Here he swallowed, praying his recounting of the witch’s life would not anger him.

“Until you were told of two farmhands who had gone missing—a siren and a cecaelia. Determined to find them, you rationalized that they had been captured by hunters above the sea, and for thirty days you scoured the coast.

“Upon seeing them on board a human ship, you flew onto the deck, and to your surprise, the seafolk had already been rescued. Not only that—they refused to leave.

“And so you had a new subject to research. Using a spell to teach yourself their language, you decided you would devote your life to the pursuit of knowledge.

“Specifically,” Macca whispered. “Knowledge of land-dwellers.”

Seeing Julian with a smile on his face, likely laughing at something Kyoko had done only reminded her of how distant she and her stepbrother had become.

Once, she thought, they would spend entire days with one another, laughing and running about the deck of the ship as their parents scolded them.

They were the best of friends then, not out of interest in one another, but out of desperation for another person their age.

Somehow, thirty some years ago, they had made it work.

But now, they hardly even knew who they were looking at, staring at the other.

Julian had become unrecognizable to her, a boy to a man in front of her very eyes, no longer so fond of days in the sun teaching sirens to play marbles, no longer finding any amusement in hiding Kyoko’s doll all over the place, watching her find it with a smile on his face.

For heaven’s sake, the woman thought, she didn’t even know what he was fond of anymore!

It was a thought that had occurred to her many times before, but particularly in the advent of her illness—that she knew nothing about her stepbrother, and at the rate she was going, she was running out of time to learn.

All she could say for certain was that he was thirty-seven years old, unmarried, and working as a longshoreman on the docks of Liverpool—that, and he never laughed anymore.

She couldn’t say whether he was a kind man (although she suspected it) she couldn’t say what he did or did not stand for, she could not even say how he felt about the rift between them.

And the tricky thing was that he would not tell her without some prodding—it just wasn’t the man he was, revealing everything about himself, opening his heart and mind to someone within hours of meeting them.

Her heart filled with scorn, she could not help but wonder what pleasure there was to be had in watching her suffer.

What kind of sadistic pleasure, she wondered, was there to be had in rubbing salt in her wounds?

And more importantly, who was getting said pleasure?

“I know who you are,” Macca repeated, his hands clutching the crystal in his satchel as he felt the bitter hatred he carried for whatever monster his friend had become rising to the surface. “You are the author of the Index of Land-dweller Customs. You are the prophet who so foretold our fates.”

The creature rested his hands in his lap.

His tone shifting to one more harsh, his hands shaking with anger, Macca picked up, “You are a stealer of souls in your death, and in your life, you were one of those heretical magicians with the audacity to intervene in a previously held soul reading.”

At such criticism, the sje’inn’a’e’s head snapped up.

And as his eyes fell upon Macca, he saw that he held in his hands a statuette of a bird, its beak and wings well-carved and easily identifiable upon its crystalline body.

His eyes grew wide, his skin grew cold, as did the other siren’s, who with quick, articulated memorization, cried, “You are Ethelein Nebiyatec of Riddidiya, and invoking the name of the disciple Saruyo, I command you to leave this house and this company!”

“Macca!” the spirit screeched, sitting with impeccable posture, if not out of a desire to sit properly, then out of pure fear. “No, Macca, you can’t do this!”

Now rightly alarmed, the siren began to cry out in Naiadic, holding the statue of the bird out to the possessed as he called, suppressing the terror that was taking over his thoughts, “Patroness of death, make swift your wrath upon this spirit!”

“Please!” Ethelein hissed, crawling on his hands and knees to the edge of the bed as he felt human tears well in his eyes. “Please, you have to stop! If I am to leave now, then you never shall know—”

“As a soul ripped from its host,” the siren raged, instinctively pressing his back into his chair. “I ask, patroness, that you so tear this beast from this foreign plane, allotting him not but a sl—”

“Stop!”

The spirit threw his arms off of the mattress, then, stretching his fingers out as far as they could go towards Macca, his long black hair shielding his face as he reached for his old friend’s wrists.

Upon seeing such a thing happen, however, Julian sprung into action, the bitter resentment that had so built in his heart over that past month drawing him to snatch Ethelein’s own wrist, jerking the spirit’s arm in his direction with more force than he knew   
was necessary as he cried, “Don’t you even try and touch him!”

Fighting the longshoreman, jerking his body about and wishing sorely he still had claws, the spirit continued through gritted teeth, “Macca, please! If you are to cast me away from this Earth until the end of time, then you will be signing your own death warrant!”

The siren’s face fell.

Julian’s grip on the witch tightened, so much so he could see the blood leave his knuckles.

Seeing that he had only one chance to prove himself in the other siren’s silence, Ethelein said rapidly, his breathing shallow and uneven, “There are things I must say to you today that will destroy you if you do not know them, things that can spare you from death.”

Macca turned his gaze to the bird in his arms.

“If you choose not to listen to them, then there shall be no one to blame but yourself for your ruin.”

Closing his eyes as tight as he could, the siren weighed in on the proposal.

Either he let Ethelein—who, despite being dead, was still more knowledgeable than himself in matters of magic—explain his prophecy, or he hung his life on the line trying to live without it. 

And in choosing his path, two names came to mind.

First, Chaplain Dranatch Yekte—the man who had encouraged Macca to pursue the study of sje’inn’a’e, to observe Ethelein’s actions and to give him time to explain himself.

And second, John Lennon—the man who, without knowledge of the sea witch’s prophecy, had been killed by it.

His closest friend, he thought, gone not because he knew the wrong things, but because he did not know the right ones.

In a low tone, Macca whispered, “Say what you must.”

Ethelein nodded, ever-thankful for the grant, and then, hoping to free himself from the man on his right’s grasp, he at last turned to that other side of the bed.

As he saw the brothers, his eyes grew wide, and his brow furrowed low, his face flushing in what he could only assume to be panic.

“No…”

Surely it was foolish of her, Kyoko reasoned, to ever have thought she and Julian would have developed the sort of relationship she wanted.

It wouldn’t have mattered if she stayed in New York until the day she died—he still would never be there.

Maybe in those early days, when they were young, they would have exchanged a letter or two between themselves, speaking of Christmas and their parents and who among their towns had fallen ill.

But after that, she supposed—after a couple of years—their relationship would have crumbled anyway.

No matter where on Earth she was, Julian would still be in Liverpool, breaking his back on the docks everyday for too small a wage, too busy cynically minding his own business to spare a thought for her in his mind. 

It was so coincidental, she thought, that they even met at all. 

She, the daughter of a female pirate captain running from her homeland in the Far East and a mad Virginian playwright, and Julian, the son of a plain English dairy maid and a siren-courting bard.

So unusual was their meeting that such a thing could only happen in the one place where the impossible became everyday life, that one place where the unachievable was achieved, and the unthinkable was not only thought, but acted upon—the main deck of the Sgt. Pepper.

The ship had served as a sort of lid on a jar, she thought.

If the lid was removed—and when she was a child, it had been—then all the contents would spill out, separating themselves and never reconvening.

Now, she thought, there were women, men, and merfolk she had adored as a young girl that she could never hope to see again.

And, whether she wanted to acknowledge it or not, Julian was bound to be part of that group. 

It was like swallowing an orange peel, accepting this truth.

But it was undeniably, indescribably, unquestionably—still the truth.

She sighed, closing her eyes for just a moment as she drew in her breath, but then heard the quick sound of footsteps drawing nearer to her.

She turned around apprehensive, a thousand terrible possibilities—everything from rabid hares to the devil himself—filling her mind.

But to her great surprise, there was no demon standing behind her.

There was only a man made of stone, standing tall as his cobblestone cape waved in the wind.

“No…” Ethelein repeated, his brow furrowed as he shriveled at the longshoreman’s touch.

It might as well have been acid on his skin, he thought, it was so unfamiliar.

“No, this isn’t right.”

The spirit shook his head, utterly confused.

It felt as though he had swallowed a sizzling stone, his mouth insatiably dry, his tongue burning and swelling in his mouth, his throat too narrow to breathe through.

He was supposed to return, he thought, with every member of the company present.

If just one person was missing… then something was gravely wrong.

Something in the Yaer Imi’s tapestry, even.

“This isn’t right at all! You—”

He turned to Julian.

“Where… where is John?”

The whole room seemed to tense at the question, no one daring to tell the beast what had become of the quartermaster.

“Where is John?” the sje’inn’a’e repeated, sounding as though his very own child was being ripped from his arms.

But Macca was not silent so much out of fear of backlash as he was out of anger.

“You know where he is, Ethelein,” he hissed. “You know better than any of us, even, so don’t you dare start playing the fool.”

“I don’t know!” the spirit countered, his eyes portraying as genuine of terror as they possibly could. “But I’ll tell you what I do know—he has to be here! He can’t just—Stars above, he was just here!”

“Just where?” Macca snapped, taking an obscene pleasure in exacting his revenge against the soul-reaper. “Tell me, I invite you—where did he go? What happened to him? I want to hear you admit to it…”

Ethelein drew back.

“Well… he was— he was just in this room!” Gesturing to the right side of the bed, he continued, “Just a moment ago, he was right here, now he’s—”

“For God’s sake,” Sean interrupted, face flushed, paying no mind to the pools of blood gathering beneath his sleeve. “He’s dead!”

Ethelein turned around so fast he nearly knocked himself into the wall, his heart sinking to the floor.

“What did you say?” his voice barely a whisper, the stone in his throat growing to the size of a boulder. 

“I said he’s dead, you deaf dunce! He’s been dead for twenty blasted years!”

“No, he hasn’t,” the spirit urged, desperate to claim otherwise. “I’ve seen him!”

“Could that—”

Sean laughed, about to lose his mind.

“Could that possibly be because you stole his soul?”

Kyoko could not help but draw her hand to her chest at the sight of the stone man.

He was as a statue—hard, gray, and covered in moss—faceless, featureless, unflinching.

But somehow, he had moved.

Just a moment ago, she thought, she had turned to see behind her, and he had not been anywhere near her.

How could he have—

A rush of adrenaline coursed through her veins.

He was walking towards her on long legs, his strides wide and unbalanced.

She screamed (although no one could hear her) gathering her skirt as she drew back just far enough that her heel could feel the cold embrace of the river water, swearing to herself that she would sooner drown then allow his cold, thin fingers to reach her flesh.

He held out his hand to the woman, his palms laced with lichen, as if to comfort her.

Seeing it, Kyoko did not move back any further. Not because she was no longer afraid, of course—she felt as though she was on the edge of death—but because she was physically unable to. 

If she moved just a hair, she feared she would end up in the same position as Julian had been.

That is to say, she would end up cold, drenched, and pneumonic. 

As she pulled only her face away from the creature, the stone man continued to move towards her, stopping only when he found himself on the edge of the river.

When he and the woman were only six inches apart, then, he cleared his throat, and in a calm, high-pitched sort of voice, he stated, “You used to throw stones.”

Looking the statue up and down, Kyoko stammered, “I don’t think I can lift you, sir…”

“You used to throw stones—did you, or no?”

The woman blinked.

She didn’t think she had done such a thing since she was a child.

The stone man laughed, a chipper tone in his voice as he muttered, “How nice is that?”

And then, holding his hand out, his palm facing the sun, he sunk into the ground, his face, torso, arms and legs crumbling into pebbles on the riverbank.

A single moment before his face broke into five pieces, he added, “Just to throw stones and chat?”

“Steal his soul?” Ethelein scoffed, offended at the very possibility. “I have stolen no one’s soul!”

Sean brought his good hand to his temple.

“You mean that as a sort of joke, don’t you?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“What about Rette?” Yoko cried, accusatory. “What about Iyera?”

The spirit furrowed his brow. 

“You mean Macca and Ringo’s mates?”

“Aye!”

“I did not steal their souls—I simply recruited their aid in what I remind you is a task that cannot go uncompleted.”

Macca’s shoulders slumped.

“Is that what you call it now? Recruitment?”

“You must understand,” Ethelein protested. “As a sje’inn’a’e, my duty is to complete what in my life I couldn’t. And considering the particular urgency of such a thing, at least as it pertains to my own case, I feel it reasonable that I use any and all means available to me to do so.”

Sean groaned.

“You bloody blunderbuss! How in Hell did you work out that you had to plant roses in my arm in order to tell us about your prophecy?”

“You know of the prophecy?” the spirit asked, alarmed. “How do you k—”

“Another witch gave it to us the day you died,” Macca explained, wishing to strike the other siren across the face so as to catch him up on everything in the past thirty years he had missed. “We’ve spent our entire time here trying to decode it.”

Ethelein drew back at this, amazed.

“So then… what have you worked out, the lot of you?”

The siren sighed, a bitter scorn in his heart as he whispered, “You predicted John’s death, Ethelein. You knew about it before he even did—for pearls’ sake, you knew about it during the soul reading… why didn’t you tell us?”

Knowing, by that point, that his pool of evidence was growing smaller as the seconds crept by, and desperate to claim otherwise, Ethelein stammered, his voice cracking, “He isn’t dead.”

“And why do you say that?” Yoko countered, resentful.

The spirit’s face flushed.

“For the last time, I saw him! He was right th—”

“And I saw him die!” the woman screeched. “I heard the shots, you fool! I saw his body hit the ground, saw the life leave his eyes.”

She let a second pass in silence before adding insult to injury:

“Do you still want to tell me he was just here?”

Ethelein faltered, staring down at his foreign hands once again.

His blood went cold.

Somehow, he thought, Yoko had to have been right.

It was one of the strangest moments of Kyoko’s life, standing on the riverbank in front of all those pebbles—that was undeniable.

It seemed that the stone man had sacrificed himself to give the woman just a moment of enjoyment, that he had given himself up so that she could laugh throwing a couple of stones across the water.

Which was, of course, a very selfless thing of him to do.

But the woman, in all honesty, was still trying to comprehend what she had seen.

He had appeared in one second, and the very next, he was gone. He was a man made of stone, dripping with moss and lichen, and upon his death, he had invited her to throw what remained of him across the river.

Tracing her fingers over the smooth rocks, she supposed she might as well have honored his dying wish. 

It had been ages since she had tossed a stone, she thought.

But picking up one of the more circular pebbles, she found she could recall most (if not all) of the rules John had taught her in doing so.

Number one, she thought, being able to picture his voice saying the words: hold the stone between your thumb and middle finger.

Number two: Hook your index finger around the circumference of the rock.

Number three: Bend your knees.

Number four: Draw your wrist behind you.

Number five: Lurch your arm forward, and as the stone enters your field of vision, so that it lies just in front of your eyes, toss it into the water.

And number six—the part that always frightened Kyoko as a young girl: pray you don’t hit any sirens, or they shall take you home with them and turn you into an afternoon snack!

The woman watched the pebble zip across her and Julian’s faces and skip across the water, gleaming like a jewel in the summer sun.

Realizing that her ability was fully intact, she could not stop herself from beaming.

She thought, for a moment, that she could spend the rest of her life skipping stones, honing her skill, perfecting life’s simplest pleasure, and jumping around like a child with excitement until time ended.

And then, as her stone sank into the river, a whirlpool opened up.

“If he died,” Ethelein whispered after a long period of silence, swallowing, if only to hope that his tears might have trickled down into his throat. “If he really, truly, beyond the shadow of a doubt is dead, then tell me—how did it happen?”

“He was murdered,” Sean explained. “Outside of that very window, he was shot by some mad vigilante one night, and by the time the sun rose, he was dead.”

The spirit shut his eyes tight.

“And that was twenty revolutions ago?” he asked the seafolk in the room, his voice shifting to an unnaturally emotional octave.

Macca nodded.

“Then, explain to me, if you can, why I saw him,” the spirit said. “I want to know why I saw him.”

“When?” the siren asked. “For all you speak of seeing him, Ethelein, you seem to simply dance around the details.”

His cheeks flushing under the man’s scrutiny, Ethelein raged, “I can’t tell you how long ago it was, for pearls’ sake! Before I came here, I could hardly think for myself! So for once in your life, just one time, if it is not so much to ask, I urge you to show some sympathy.”

With this the company couldn’t help but feel as though they were being insulted.

After everything they had been put through at the command of the bird, after every dream, nightmare, drowning, growing, finding, stealing, keeping, and bleeding—he had the audacity to ask for the company’s sympathy?

But there was the problem, Ringo thought.

They weren’t speaking to that blasted bird anymore.

They weren’t even speaking to that theatrical version of the spirit he had been when he first returned.

They were speaking to their old friend, the same as they knew him thirty years ago.

“You expect me to show you sympathy after you stole my dead mate’s soul, robbing her of her autonomy in a peaceful afterlife, and referred to it as necessary?” Macca asked, disgusted.

The spirit shut his eyes tight.

“That’s not what we’re here to talk about,” he murmured.

“Oh,” Sean mused. “A classic in the history of avoiding your critics, isn’t that right, Dhani?”

The young Sir Harrison, who was beyond frightened in the room, and only growing more antsy as time went on, clutched hard onto his father’s arm at the comment.

“I refuse t— I refuse to partake in this,” he said quickly, a noticeable stutter in his voice.

“Come now,” the cecaelia urged, more so as a way to keep himself together than anyone else. “We’ve no time for bickering. Just tell us, Ethelein, when have you seen John?”

Ethelein paused.

“The first time I saw him,” he began, unsure of himself. “After I had died, I remember it was cold outside.”

More thoughtfully, then, he continued, “I was standing among trees one day—and to this day I know not why—but I was. 

“There were people everywhere, standing like giants among me… but what I remember best is the shiver that ran through my body.

“It was as though I had been frozen over, really. I was shaking so hard; I could not stop it.

“And then I saw him standing across from me,” he said fondly. “We looked at each other for a moment, as I recall, making eye contact, and he began to walk towards me.

“Crouching down, he stroked my head, and in all of my life or death, I had never felt so warm.

He paused, then, a bittersweet dread filling his veins as he remembered he would never feel that man’s touch again.

He was gone.

More so than himself, even.

“He said I was awfully nice,” the spirit concluded, a ghost of a smile on his face. “And so from then, I kept looking for him. We walked through those same woods again, I remember, searching for a key of some sort… we grew some sort of bright red fruit together—although they were sabotaged by some pesky flowers—and we ate some of them, though he was hesitant at first. Neither him nor I had ever tasted anything so wonderful.”

He drew in a sharp breath.

“If you want to tell me that all of that was a lie, that he and I were never together, that I am nothing short of mad, and that none of it ever happened, then do so. It sounds like you, honestly. But I remember it all as well as I can, and while my memory may not be sharp, it is not one that plays tricks on me.”

For the first time in his trip, Macca found himself to be like the others—clueless, confused, and without a single source to help him.

Instead, it was Julian who became the intellectual mascot of the company, if only for a single second.

His thoughts moving at the speed of sound, his reasoning went as follows:

Ethelein had stood with John in the woods one winter after his death, who had come by, after making eye contact, to stroke his head and tell him how nice he was.

Ethelein had strolled with John through the forest one morning, searching high and low for some sort of key, one both physical and metaphorical.

Ethelein had grown a bush of bright red fruits with John, which were later crushed by a crowd of pesky flowers. And the two had both eaten them, albeit with some hesitation, never having tasted anything so sweet.

And the Scotsman, he thought, had warned both him and Sean that they were part of something more than they knew, that the bird could not see reality as it truly was.

His bloodshot eyes turning to Sean’s, he whispered in unbridled horror, “The Scotsman was right…”

It seemed almost painfully ironic that, like everything else that had ever happened to her, the moment Kyoko skipped the stone across the water, her heart and mind filling with glee, the whirlpool opened up.

It was an especially loud thing, she noted, the sound of rushing water having quickly grown to such a volume that she could not hear herself think.

Still, she could see, and what she saw terrified her.

For the whirlpool, with the stone trapped somewhere inside, was growing into a cyclone, the torrent splashing and thrashing about the river as it sucked up all the water in the vicinity.

Backing away as fast as she could, she looked everywhere for the stone man, praying to God that she would catch just a single glimpse of his featureless face, his cobblestone cape, or perhaps a view of his lichen-dipped palm.

Perhaps those pebbles were not him, she thought. manic.

Perhaps he had simply played a trick on her, and was hiding in the woods somewhere, waiting to jump out and rescue her when the time was right.

She sprinted through the trees, nearly tripping as the whirlpool, like a glutton in a palace, reached the edge of the water and began to soak up the dirt and grass on the riverbank.

Everywhere she looked, she saw the same thing—thick stumps of wood reaching high into the sky, their leaves fanning out into the clouds, their eyes glaring at her from above.

It was almost as though they were mocking her, she thought, daring her to find her own way out of the storm.

As the wind creeped up to her heels, she decided that she had no other option.

The stone man was nowhere.

She would have to save herself for once.

Turning her entire body around, stepping her foot out into the whirlpool, she shouted, “Take me if you so wish!”

And take her it did, the wind enveloping her in its cold, the dirt, water, and grass filling her body, shoving itself into her mouth, forcing its way down her throat, and settling itself in her lungs.

And then, peculiarly, it passed over her, not swallowing her up in its wrath, never to be seen again, suffocating her until she saw stars, but taking her, for a moment, into its arms, and then releasing her.

And when she opened her eyes, all she saw was a white light. 

“Right about what?” Sean demanded, a panicked edge to his voice that nearly sent Julian into cardiac arrest.

Drawing his brother near to him, uncomfortable to the largest possible degree being the sudden focus of the company’s attention, he muttered, “Us. He told us that we were part of something we couldn’t understand, remember? He said the bird couldn’t tell   
what was real and what was not.”

“What are you saying?”

Julian ran his hand through his hair. 

“My God… and the mirror!”

Sean furrowed his brow.

“What about it?”

“We didn’t see ourselves inside, remember? We never did!”

“I don’t know what you’re ta—”

“We saw Father.”

The baker’s face fell.

“Y—”

Julian shook his head.

“Sean, he doesn’t think we’re real! Christ, he has no idea who we are!”

The younger man suddenly felt as though he was sinking in quicksand, like his mouth was being filled with it, like it was suffocating him.

He only managed to stammer, “You mean to say… He thinks—”

Julian’s eyes grew wide.

“He thinks we’re Father.”

Sean took a step back from his brother as though he were some kind of madman, blood dripping onto the floor beneath him.

His head shook back and forth wildly, his arms shaking so hard he was certain the rose-covered one would burst.

“No…” he whispered to himself. “No, no, no, no, no…”

Backing away from Julian, he nearly jumped out of his skin as he felt the touch of a hand brush against his leg.

He turned around instinctively, releasing every curse on the face of the planet as his eyes met those of his sister.

Or what had become of his sister, anyways.

Ethelein tilted his head.

“You’re… you’re John’s children?”

“Good God, yes!”

The sje’inn’a’e drew back, his face paling to the color of bones.

Cupping his hand over his mouth, salty tears streaming down his cheeks, he choked, “He’s really gone…Ai mna tydueca, he’s really gone!”

His chest heaving in anger, Macca spat, “As a matter of fact, Ethelein, he is. And since you’re so clueless, as a damned seahorse, even, with but a quarter of a brain, Let me tell you something else—”

“Macca,” Ringo urged.

“Of all the places it could have went,” the siren continued, rage stabbing into his heart until it was drained of all its blood. “Of all possible outcomes—”

“Macca, come on!”

The siren tensed the muscles in his neck, his chin jutting sharp as a sword to the left as he crossed, “You were the one who wrung your bleeding fingers around his soul.”

Upon hearing this, Ethelein’s head fell to his elbows, his forehead buried in his forearms as he wept, his face hot as the sun, red as a rose.

With shaking, staggered movements, he ran his hand through his knotted black hair.

Seeing him, Macca felt no remorse.

But then, catching the attention of every member of the company, driving them, for a moment, away from their worries, and filling their hearts and minds with new ones, George began to cough.

It was not with normal force that he did so, nor with the painful prowess with which he fell into his fits.

It was something entirely new, as though he was a cat coughing up a hairball, choking and sputtering on it near to the point of asphyxiation.

Dhani held tight onto his arm, praying aloud to every god he could think of that his father might be spared, his breathing unhealthily shallow and quick.

And then, near falling to the floor, in place of feathers, a stream of cloth fell out of Sir Harrison’s mouth, the color of blood, or of the deepest apple.

It was crimson, deep and menacing.

And as George drew his eyes to back to the bed, his ears ringing, he found that nothing was the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's your cookie!  
> (just imagine it, my friends. you aren't in the Beatles fandom for nothing)


	61. To Grab a Hand, To Keep a Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which an old illustrator arrives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN AND SEAN!!!!
> 
> (i cant swim)
> 
> Also this one is long again, at least for my taste. The next two or so chapters will be the same way, just as a heads up.  
> Sorry there's no cookie this time. I think I ran out.

Dhani was crouched down low to the ground, his one knee digging into the floor as his hand hovered over his father’s arched back.

At the sight of the red cloth, he was understandably terrified, convinced, in every sense of the word, that the end was drawing near for his father.

It must have been some kind of omen, he thought, some kind of sign from God (or whoever was out there by that point) that George would soon meet his end.

But, the old man’s breath finally returning, his chest heaving as he gasped in the goodness, the young Sir Harrison understood that there were more important things to worry about than whatever strange and mysterious object his father had spit out on the floor.

He threw his arms around the man, his palm caressing his shoulder and his nose digging into the crook of his neck.

Drawing back, with audible relief in his voice, he began, “Father, are you alright?”   


The old man flinched at his touch, his eyes squinting and his face contorting as though it was a python wrapping itself around his body and not his frightened son. 

“Father?” Dhani asked again, more concerned. “Are you able to speak?”   


Tilting his head slowly, George’s lips didn’t move, his eyes instead turning to his hands.

They seemed so foreign, he thought, too rough and too big for his body, with nails too short and wrists too wide.

As for the space in front of him, it was filled with people and objects he hardly recognized—mad women, men stuffed with roses like woven dolls, eyes all glancing at him, concerned, hard tables and posts with edges so sharp they could cut skin.

Blinking as he returned his gaze to the young man, he opened his mouth to speak.

Swallowing, in a tone too raspy, too high, too lilting, he answered, “I am not your father…”   
  


The first thing George saw when he opened his eyes was a royal maroon rug, spread long and thin beyond his vision.

His cough having subsided, air filling his nose, mouth, and lungs, he felt a grim terror creep into his skull, a feeling of being watched, even, as though someone had struck with unyielding force the lowest audible note on a harpsichord.

He seemed to be in some kind of maze, he thought, trapped in a thousand-foot long candlelit corridor.   


Its ceilings were higher than heaven itself, its walls draped lavishly in velvet and silk.

And covering every inch of the wooden walls, the old man noted, were paintings.

They were large, they were small, they were round, they were square. The strokes and styles were broad, thin, curled, plain, detailed—any and every imaginable variation, in frame, canvas, paint, and painting was present.

But the one thing they all had in common was their subject.

Each and every one was a portrait.

And taking a step down the dark corridor, the first one that caught George’s eye was that of his grandfather.

The Old Rowley.

The Merry Monarch.

The shame of the Harrison family—King Charles II of England.

Dhani nearly ran away from the creature, his pupils dilating to levels Anton van Leeuwenhoek would be amazed by.

The white of his eyes shone like silver at the bottom of the sea, his face pale as the moon reflecting on the water as he drew back, toppling over Macca’s tail and onto his back.

Holding tight onto the siren’s hand as he drew himself up, he found he was no longer able to speak, his voice paralyzed with fear.

So instead, eyes narrowed and face flushed at the  _ sje’inn’a’e _ , trying to remain calm so as not to stab the young Sir Harrison with his claws, Macca growled, “Did you kill him as well?”

Dhani’s blood went cold.

His palms pressed flat out in front of him on the mattress, Ethelein looked up then, alarmed.

“I killed no one!” he cried. “When have I ever—”   


“You fool!” Sean spat. “You utter dunce, have you but one shred of consciousness to spare? For the sake of all that is holy, your blasted  _ curse  _ killed the woman living in the body you now inhabit! Yes, you killed someone! You killed Kyoko!”   


“Kyoko…” Ethelein mumbled, staring at his hand. “You mean to say I am in the body of the captain’s daughter?”   


“It would seem that way,” Julian sighed, foot tapping as though he were running from every demon in Hell.

The spirit took a moment to consider this, and then, with a furrowed brow, muttered, “I would never have expected that…”   


“And why not?” Macca hissed. “Was it not you who chose such a vessel?”   


“No one in this world chooses anything,” Ethlein said quietly. “It isn’t for us to decide—that’s the  _ Yaer Imi _ ’s job.”   


“The nowhere man?” Julian asked, confused.

“If that’s what you’d like to call him. But he’s the only living thing on Earth that can decide exactly what we do, the only living thing who knows why things happen to us specifically.”

He paused.

“And so leads me to my question—why, of all of you, is it the captain’s daughter whose body I take?”

Stepping into the company, growing dimly aware of its surroundings, the soul inside of George laughed, “That’s a very good question. But in the same regard, I must add: why have I been placed in the body of this bard?”

At the sound of the voice, Macca’s face fell.

His heart sinking ten thousand leagues under the sea, his course of thought freezing over like a New English pond, he did not look the ghost in the eyes as he whispered, “Who are you?”   


George smiled.

Macca dug his claws into his tail.

And Dhani stood in the corner, cowering in fear, praying silently to every god he could think of.

"You, of all people, should know.”

The king sat poised on his restored throne, a golden crown situated above his brow as the scarlet fabric upon his shoulders met with pristinely white ermine fur to form what was to be his coronation mantle.

His eyes seemed empty, George thought, taking several paces around his grandfather, and his posture appeared dull. 

Of course, the former was to be expected. Anyone would be tired, he reasoned, after sitting ten hours in the same position, staring blankly towards the painter on what was the most important day of his entire life.

His hair was of a thick, curly black texture, his skin the color of a peeled almond, and his garments (all but the red and gold mantle, of course) were of a blissful ivory.

Looking at him, the old Sir Harrison wasn’t sure what to think.

Not that he ever was before, of course. 

A good portion of his life, catalysed on the morning of his eighteenth birthday, had been spent trying to answer that exact question—how exactly did he feel about his grandfather?   


And for that matter, what was he  _ supposed  _ to feel?   


And after thirty-nine years, the answer he had come up with was that he had no answer.

He did not scorn his image of the man for having been unfaithful, for only those without sin could cast the first stone.

And in the same vein, he could not commend the man for reclaiming his rightful throne following the death of his father.

While it was an incredible feat, make no mistake, the sort of thing to be studied and taught and remembered as legend, George could not point to it and say that  _ that _ specific moment in time—that reclamation of the Stuart title, that restoration of the English monarchy—was something he was proud to carry in his bloodline.

And the reason he could not do this was simple.

He had not been the one to do it.

He was not in line for the throne, and for the first eighteen years of his life, he had no knowledge of such an esteemed branch on his family tree.

The sins of the father, he thought, were not the sins of the son.

And in the same vein, the achievements of the father were not the achievements of the son.

And speaking of the father, as George took a number of steps down the corridor, passing paintings of his siblings, coy smiles on their faces as their eyes seemed to trail his body, and his childhood acquaintances, standing poised and unmoving, his eyes caught sight of his own father.

Biting his cheek, the sound of his shoes clicking against the floor halted.

Ringo immediately grabbed hold of his friend’s arm, a worried look on his face as he took note of the tears welling in the siren’s eyes.

Lifting his veil to his forehead, clutching tightly onto the fabric as he shielded his face, Macca could only bring himself to say one word.

“I—”

With that, he found himself at a loss, swimming into a rock, if you will.

Oxymoronically, he had both everything and nothing to say to the woman.

It was as though there were two separate forces pulling him in opposite directions, each with enough force to tear his heart in two, each with enough strength to crush all of the progress he had made since that silent Spring day.

Still, his vocal cords paralyzed, Ringo looked to him for an answer to the muted question of what he was to do.

And so, with no answer in sight, Ethelein asked his own question.

“Now, who would you be?” he spoke, tilting his head. “Iy—”   


The ghost drew her palm to her heart, pressing it firmly against her chest as she replied, “Iyera Vedyavesc of Na’atsji. And you must be the Riddidiyan witch?”   


“I am Ethelein, yes.”   


“Ah,” she nodded.

Dhani shook his head back and forth, his voice quivering as he whispered, tears welling in his eyes.

“What have you done to my father?”

Iyera furrowed her brow at his, pausing to think.

But before she could come up with anything, Ethelein answered, “She’s possessed him, I’m afraid.”   


The young man swallowed.

“But will he come back?” he asked, trying his hardest to keep his composure.

Ethelein pursed his lips, his eyes squinting in dim confusion, cast away from the young Sir Harrison’s face as he answered, “By all reasonable knowledge, he should be stuck in the space between the seas right about now. He’s a soul with no proper place, you see, having been ejected from this world.

“But I can personally attest to the happenings in this location, as for quite some time before I arrived, I was in the same place.”   


He paused here. 

“It is…  _ possible  _ that he—and the captain’s daughter along with him—could get trapped there, and through the process of soul decay, could end up in the Sea of Monsters.”   


Macca stopped breathing for a moment at the mere mention of the place.

“But I find it unlikely,” Ethelein rushed to add. “Unless we stay here long past our allotted time, we have no reason to fear anyone will die.”

Dhani nodded slowly.

His first instinct was to grab the Bible on the desk and hit the ghosts over the head with it, chanting in Latin as he demanded his father’s safe return.

But feeling Sean’s gaze tear holes through his flesh, his eyes locked upon him, the young Sir Harrison reminded himself that he had to play things safe.

He was not playing a game with no rules, after all, and in the same respect, he was not the player.

He was nothing but a pawn on a chessboard. And if he ever wanted to take down the black king, then he could not proceed outside of his predetermined series of movements.

Deciding that he would have to coexist with the spirits, he simply drew in a deep breath and said, “Thank you.”

The bedchamber grew silent for a moment, each person inside recognizing the weight of the revelation on their shoulders.

Then, turning around to face everyone in the room, Iyera said, “You’ll all have to forgive me, if it does not cause you any trouble… While some of you I am familiar with, I find you all to have changed so much since we last met.”

She looked to Dhani specifically.

“You, for example, the son of George—when I last saw you, you were not but a babe.”   


“I suppose that would be right,” the young man chuckled, uncomfortable.

Hearing his mate say such a thing, Macca grew somber.   


“Have I changed?” he asked in a hollow voice.

Panicked, his eyes finally taking in the sight of the woman in George’s body, he then added, “Have you?”   


Iyera drew back, keen to notice the fear in her widower’s tone, the way his words seemed to scratch against his throat like a saber against a rock. 

“I find it difficult to believe change is possible after life,” she said after a moment. “Although I would not completely rule it out, because there are cases such as mine.”   


“It’s a riddle, I suppose,” she laughed. “The type where the answer changes with perspective—All of it is dependent on whether you believe I am dead or alive.”   


The living siren furrowed his brow, deep wrinkles forming on his face.

“And what are you?” he asked quietly.

The woman sighed and shifted her gaze to her feet, which she had to admit she was taking great pleasure in standing on.

“I’m Iyera Vedyavesc.” she said.

The First Earl of Liverpool sat comfortably in his chair, his arm resting on the side as he stroked a small dog in his lap, its coat soft and silky.

He looked quite old in the painting, George thought. It must have been painted while he was still a young man, or even a boy, perhaps.

His eyes were not cold, not menacing—but that isn’t to say that they were warm and inviting either.

Put simply, they were there, staring into the eyes of an imaginary person on the other wall.

And that was all they were.

Looking at him, George felt a twinge of regret.

He had not seen the man’s face since he was eighteen years old, he thought.

In fact, the last time he had ever said anything was the morning him and John had left for the sea.

It was in a letter, he recalled, that he told his parents he could not continue to live in such a frivolous fashion, sheltered and safe in his ivory tower, exposed to no ideas but his own.

He had been given everything, he wrote, born into a wealthy, well-mannered society through his ironically degenerate bloodline.

But for one time in his life, he wanted to work for something.

And so for seven years he had toiled on that ship, putting his skills in swordsmanship to the test as he and John fought back royal sailors, rival pirates, and those dreaded mermaid hunters. 

In some ways, he thought, he could attribute his discovery of the  _ true  _ meaning of life, his discovery of what he would make his life’s work, to his father.

Through his words, speaking of his heritage, he had completely transformed the life of the nobleman, and had indirectly led him down the path to all things good in his life.

His rekindling of faith, he thought, his humility, his grit, his wife—he could have lived without any of it, he thought, if not for his father.

Of course, turning to the other side of the wall, he was not the only person responsible for such changes in his life.

The look on Macca’s face portrayed an overwhelming mixture of grief, frustration, and fear, his cheeks flushed in desperation as he asked, raving like a madman,“But what are you?”

“I’m not anything,” Iyera repeated. “I’m only myself.”   


“For pearls’ sake, Iyera,” the widowed siren cried, acidic tears freely flowing down his face, discoloring the wood of the floor. “Are you dead or alive?”

To answer this, a frown on her face, the woman turned to Ethelein.

“I am no magician,” she admitted. “But no matter their ability, I cannot believe that is a simple question for one to answer.   


“If you ask me, then it doesn’t matter so much. I’m here, and that’s all I know. That’s all I  _ care  _ to know.”   


Macca faltered.

It was so much like her, he thought, to ignore such a detail.

It was so much like her, he thought, to dive headfirst into the abyss, to see what he saw as tragedy as bliss.

She was so unlike him in every way—she always had been. 

But to see her standing there, he thought, and to hear her say that she did not care for her own death, he could not help but believe she was being selfish.

“If it doesn’t matter,” he said, his jaw tense, resentment building up in his heart like dried blood along a wound. “Then tell me why I haven’t slept in days.”   


Dhani stared at the ground, his face pale as he considered the situation.

“If it doesn’t matter, then tell me why I cried everyday for months.”   


“Macca, that isn’t what I m—”   


“If it doesn’t matter,” the siren finally screeched, a flood of emotions overpowering the dam that was his rationality. “Then tell me why I can’t have the courage sit here and face my own mate!”

Iyera’s face tensed, for a moment, her eyes showcasing fear, her tongue stuck between her lips as she thought of a defense.

But then, her eyebrows settling, deep wrinkles forming between them, she let herself frown.

The one thing she remembered about Macca—the one thing she could never forget—was that if you let him explode for a moment, he would burn himself out the next.

It was important for him, she thought, to give him space to shout.

Because when he was done shouting, he was never half as angry.

If George had been wearing a hat, then at the sight of the man staring wistfully to the sea, he would have removed it.

After so much time, he found himself moved by the sight of his profile.

He had forgotten, after all, the way the light shown through John’s auburn hair. He had forgotten the rosy color that tinted his nose when he had sat out in the sun playing whist. 

But most movingly of all, George had forgotten the man’s smile. 

It was not that sort of smile that so presented itself by the end of their voyage, one riddled with passive aggression and heart-stopping false sweetness.

No—it was that kind of a smile that bled mischief, sincerity radiating from his lips as in his spirit wed the parties of genuine happiness and wistful remembrance.

It was that smile, he thought, that had led George to do the one thing he never could bring himself to do on his own.

That is to say, it was that smile that had sent running off the shore with nearly nothing but a cittern to strum.

Looking back at it, and especially seeing John so young, George could not help but think to himself that they had both been awfully short-sighted in those days.

For the elder man, of course, this rang true in both his vision and his mind.

See, when he watched as the English coast trailed behind him on the ship, that day he had changed everyone’s lives forever, there was more he was leaving behind on that shore than obscene wealth.

While wealth he did not have much of, what he did have were obligations. Not to any God or man—he was indebted, after all, to no one but himself—but to his family.

That day, he had not left England a lonely man.

He was a husband, having just barely wed, and for Christ’s sake, he was a father to a newborn babe!

It was not George’s business, he had thought at the time, to ask him why he had given everything up.

But so many years later, watching his descendants tear themselves apart over who he was and why he did what he did, the old man could not help but wonder if his friend had ever considered the consequences of such a course of action.

Yes, many years into the future, his son held the dark hatred courted by abandonment deep in his heart, his former wife (who, George reminded himself, he was still  _ technically  _ married to) was doing God-knows-what to get by, and in the midst of all of it, John had just up and left.

The bitter truth was that he was not around to explain his actions. He hadn’t been for twenty years.

But even if he wasn’t, George thought to himself, he never would have.

John was stubborn, in the same way that his younger son was, and for the over twenty years George had known him, he had learned that the man would not apologize for anything unless he was blindfolded, his feet were tied, and the edge of a sword was digging into his neck.

So it couldn’t have been reasoning that the company seeked, or even an apology.

He supposed all they wanted was to move on with their lives.

And sinking into the darkness, his eyes transfixed on the white lace of the woman’s dress in the next portrait that so captured his attention, her blonde hair beautifully complimenting its color, he was reminded why moving on was so often the hardest thing a man could do.

His frown turning his face to wet sand, his claws digging into the pads of his fingers, his smoldering eyes locked dead on his mate, Macca continued, “I know what you thought—you thought that you could just… that you could just leave us all here, leave me a widower, leave the children as orphans, and everything would be alright! 

“You thought that you could come back here, that you could show up with the smile of an opera mask, laughing yourself into oblivion—because  _ why in the stars _ would anyone ever feel like disemboweling themself, watching the dead love of their life come back to them and act as though they had done nothing to absolutely destroy them?!”   


Yoko crossed her arms, taking a deep breath, but feeling as though she could not possibly get enough air into her lungs.

She was breathing through a cheesecloth, she thought, between Kyoko’s disappearance, Ethelein’s arrival, and Macca’s emotional reunion with his wife.

Now, while she was too proud to admit such a thing, she could not deny it—hearing the siren speak, the pain in his voice as visible as ink spilled across a cloud, she saw a piece of herself.

She resonated with him, truly.

It was a hell of a thing to build a home from the charred remains of a palace.

But it was even harder to weather that palace through a storm.

More than anything—and this she did not recognize at the time—she was afraid of the siren’s similarity to herself.

As the seconds ticked by, numbers in the mind of man falling over and replacing one another, the odds that John, also, would reappear were growing greater.

There were two souls already present, and as said by Ethelein, they were not under their own autonomy, but the control of the  _ Yaer Imi _ .

The question remained, however: If he  _ were  _ to return, then whose body would he overtake?

“I  _ don’t  _ want to sound spiteful towards you,” Macca admitted, sitting helplessly in his vulnerability. “But you must understand—death is not some split second that passes like every other. It’s a wretch, truly. It’s a drag. And it does not—and  _ cannot ever _ —pass over those remaining without so much as a slip of the hand.

“It’s a black beast,” the siren concluded. “And you’d be a fool to see it as anything else.”   


Shielding his eyes with his hand, his stomach churning, a hopeless edge to his voice, he whispered, “Of course it’s you in George’s body…”   


A staggered cry passed through his lips.   


“Why would it be anyone else?”

The marriage of Patricia and Eric Clapton was, in short, a bittersweet scene.

The bride, lovely as ever, stood serene in the portrait, her eyes attached like a drop of water on the side of a glass to the pastor in front of her.

And the groom, posture straight and with tall stature, held his hands by his groin, one in the other as the thought ran through his head, the thought that after years in the sand, he had found his desert jewel.

It was a saccharine scene, truly, to see the two standing before their friends and family in that most divine of sacraments.

But if anything was missing in the painting, George thought, then it was undoubtedly those long nights, those words unspoken between him and his former wife, suppressed in favor of frustration as they stood in opposite ends of the room, their backs facing each other.

It was difficult to say what exactly had led their marriage to fall apart.

After so many years, Sir Harrison concluded, rather simply, that it was not meant to last.

But that’s not to say that it held no meaning, that their entire relationship was some sham created on a whim, a fault of their humanity and the desires that so came with.

In his view, at least, him and Patricia were destined to meet, not for the purpose of staying together until they were dust, but so that they might have learned something from the other, and from the peril that they each suffered in those days.

And George couldn’t say how she felt, and in the same respect, what she had learned.

But he could say this much—she had taught him the importance of observing oneself, the importance of empathy.

She had taught him the one thing John never could—likely because he was flawed in the same way. 

And that was that no person was immune to becoming the antagonist of a tale.

It was not necessarily that in doing so, a person would become a villain, the sort of man that took pleasure in his misdeeds, stretching out each and every interaction with a person so as to squeeze all the pulp from the orange of pain, but rather a simple truth of life.

At some point, so it went, every man would take his turn to harden his heart.

At some point, every man would become blind to such a thing happening, deflecting their subconscious guilt onto another person so as to walk away free.

Oftentimes, he did so unknowingly, believing in the limited scope of the human mind that he was completely in the right.

But sooner or later, as an act of karma, repercussions would follow his actions or lack thereof.

For Sir Harrison, of course, karma had struck its gavel into his first marriage, embodied and wrapped in flesh as the two exchanged harsh words.

But after so much time, they had both come to their sensibilities, and hearing that two of his closest companions were to be wed, George had been quite pleased.

Still, there remained a part of him that longed for that closeness he held with Patricia, a piece of him that wanted to hold her once again, if not as his bride, then as a friend of his.

But, as he knew well, there was nothing in life that was permanent.

While she was not insignificant in his mind, nor in his biography, she was no longer a part of his life.

She was, however, a lovely portrait to look at.

Iyera drew in a deep breath, her unfamiliar heart beating quickly in her ribcage.

After a long minute of near-silence, the only sound to be heard being that of her widower’s heavy sobs, she stepped towards him, and with a gentle touch, placed her palm on his shoulder.

“I never meant to hurt you,” she said in a low tone. “You know that, and I know that you know that.”   


“It wasn’t you,” Macca sighed. “It was your outlook on the whole thing.”   


Though the eyes of all the company were upon them, the spirit acted as though it was just her and her mate, the only two beings alive in the entire Earth and sea.

“It left you unprepared,” she murmured. “Didn’t it?”   


The siren shook his head.

“Is there such a thing as being prepared?” 

Wrapping both her arms around his neck, convening them right above his heart, able to feel the blood pumping through his body, Iyera answered, “I suppose not.”

Macca shut his eyes tight.

“Don’t…”

His eyelids fluttered rapidly over his irises.

“Don’t touch me, please.”   


Saying not a word, the ghost removed her arms.

And then, as though nothing had happened, she continued, “It wasn’t as though I was unfazed by the thought of death. In fact, it terrified me. 

“But I would be remiss to not acknowledge that it was you who led me to my viewpoint—that it was not necessarily something to look forward to, but also nothing to fear.”   


“You derived that from me?” Macca asked, bewildered.

“Of course I did. It’s a silly sort of thing, I think, but I find that where you tend to take your mind and toss it into a hundred-league pit, I’m very level-headed.   


“Seeing you so upset over everything,” she continued. “I couldn’t stand it. I suppose at some point it reached its peak, you spending so much of your time worrying about me, and I thought to myself, ‘Why should we be losing so much sleep over the one thing that every person has in common?’”   


“Every person is susceptible to being stabbed in the heart with a sword,” Macca muttered. “So then why is that not something you refuse to fear?”   


“Because that hardly happens to anyone. The problem is that you’re speaking in terms of what  _ could  _ happen, not what  _ will  _ happen.”   


The siren’s face fell.

“I think you’re more like me than you think,” the woman laughed. “I truly do.”   


“And why is that?”

“When I was dying,” Iyera said, her face growing serious. “It was you who comforted me. It was you who spoke of spring days and clear-blue skies.   


“You, more than anyone else, cemented that worldview, that death was something not so tragic as it is made out to be.  _ You did that _ .”   


Macca shook his head.

“And I was a fool in doing so.”

  
  
Walking steadily down long and winding hall, George gazed in great tranquility at the beautiful colors, patterns, and strokes in the paintings around him, boldly encapturing the best features of those he loved—Olivia’s tan skin and obsidian black hair, Ringo’s childish smile, the joy on the children of Madras’s faces as they pushed their marbles around in the dirt.

He was having the time of his life, honestly, strolling through that corridor.

In fact, it was only when he stumbled across a portrait of his son, grown in the body and grave in the face, that he felt that creeping sense of dread reappear.

Dhani seemed frightened, he thought, in the portrait, his eyes wild, as though he saw upside-down in one of them, his face portraying a recognizable duality.

He was fighting something, in his head, unsure of which creature on his shoulder to listen to, unsure of where to turn.

Such a sight normally would have saddened the old Sir Harrison, but as was becoming the norm in those days, he found himself not so upset over his son’s circumstance as he was angry about it.

The lengths to which that boy had gone in the acting out of his insanity, the conclusions he not only jumped, but vaulted towards, and the sheer lack of logic that so accompanied it all served only to shame George.

It was not right to him that someone carrying his very name and blood should be so passionately opposed to all those values he held dear—those of reason, collectivity, and maturity.

Even more so was this wrong when it was taken into consideration that a year ago, on that very day, everything had been perfectly fine with the young man.

He had enjoyed his Christmas dinner, making light and jovial banter as he did so, with a smile on his face.

He was a man who could speak four languages, a man who practically praised Sir Isaac Newton as the second coming of Christ.

But after his father had been stabbed—not Dhani, mind you, but his father—an event which he had hardly seen, and one through which the old man lived, he decayed into a raving lunatic.

George had meant what he had said when the boy had stolen Ringo’s necklace—that he wished he never would have brought him to New York.

Perhaps if he had kept him in Madras, the man thought, then he would have recovered somehow, his mother talking some sense into him with the quick, poetic sound of the Spanish tongue while his father was away.

It was an interesting situation, truly.

While mere moments ago, the old man had thought of the importance of time moving forward, reminding himself that nothing was permanent, and that all men, should they wish to survive, must make an effort to right their wrongs, in their thoughts and in their words, in what they have done, and in what they have failed to do, he now stood drenched in his own present remorse, too shortsighted to recognize how his scolding of Dhani was only serving to worsen the young man’s state.   
  


“I don’t understand,” Julian said, his voice hoarse, having not spoken for quite some time by that point. “How does that relate to Sir Harrison?”   


Macca sighed.

“He’s so optimistic,” the siren began. “It’s as though he can’t understand the weight of his own death.”

Dhani dug his heel into the ground.

It did sound a bit like his father, he thought, treating his death as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

Biting his lip, he stopped to consider this.

It was natural, wasn’t it?   


Panic seeping into his heart, it occurred to him at last that he had no choice but to admit it.

His father’s oncoming death was not a curse brought on by Sean, nor was it a curse of karma, caused by something heinous he had done.

All it was was death.

And strangely enough, that thought—having no explanation but the simplest for his father’s end—was what scared him the most.

After a month, he thought, after everything he had gone through, he was right back where he started.

He might as well have been on the deck of that ship, for all he cared.

“He is not going to die,” he stated firmly, doing his best to keep his tone relatively even. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”   


“But there’s just the thing,” Iyera said, turning to him. “You don’t.”   


“I will pray until I cannot pray anymore,” the young man retorted. “I, as his son, will be his caretaker until he—until he leaves this Earth.”   


“And that’s a noble thing to do,” Ringo added, taking a step towards Dhani. “To take care of him. But there’s no use in ignoring the inevitable. For that matter, there’s no use in ignoring anything.”

“We’ve all got to die, dear,” Iyera said, nodding. “There isn’t any getting around it and there isn’t any getting out of it.”   


His face flushing, the young Sir Harrison shot back, “I am not denying the reality of death! All I am doing is saying that I will keep him alive as—as long as I possibly can!”

“But how—”   


“Is that such a crime?” he cried.

“But how long can you realistically do that?” the ghost posed. “You have to remember, it isn’t up to you when or how he dies.”   


“It is if I starve him! It is if I-I stab him in the back!”   


“Oh, the irony...” Sean mused, staring at his bloodstained hand.

It felt like years, George thought, until he reached the end of the corridor.

But after so much time, he was surprised to find himself staring at a wall, a clock thirty feet in the air standing in front of it like a guard.

His neck curled, his chin lifting as he cast his gaze up towards it, up towards the heavens, noticing that on the face of the clock, the time read three minutes to midnight.

More curious, however, was the massive painting that loomed over it, its canvas as wide as the Earth itself, its height large enough to sear the sky. 

Not only was its size a feat of the strange world he found himself in, but also its subject matter.

For contrary to every other portrait in the room, there was no subject. 

There was no face to distinguish, there was no outline of a man or woman to make out.

All that was present on the canvas, covering every inch of it in an omnipresent, ominous sort of way, were swaths of deep red paint, layered unevenly, dripping down to the base of the frame.

It was as though the painting was bleeding.

And so frightening was this sight that with a clearing of his throat, George took an instinctive step back.

As strange as it was, he could not take his eyes off of it.

So you can only imagine, then, the rush of adrenaline he felt as an image of a sunflower appeared among the red haze.

He nearly jumped out of his skin, the barest of yelps escaping his lips.

It was not a painted sunflower, as you might think, but rather a true, colorful image of a sunflower growing in the wild, its individual seeds the size of an elephant’s head, defined so clearly above his eyes that George thought his body would be engulfed in the dirt-black mess.

His right leg leaned to the side behind his left, his position begging him to sprint all the way back to the end of the corridor, he turned to see what—if anything—he could find behind him.

And to his horror, there was nothing.

Not a single portrait lined the walls, not a single maroon banner was draped up above him.

The rug beneath his feet had somehow vanished, as well as the wood that supported him.

His breathing picking up, he turned his head all about the room, searching every corner from every angle, and came to the dreadful conclusion that he was in a room with two things total—two things  _ only _ —around him.

And those things were, by planned coincidence, the grandfather clock, its hands reaching for midnight, and the sunflower, its frame having disappeared, its petals growing wider, its seeds growing taller.

Everything else around him, as though he and the room along with him were bleeding to death, was pure red.

No walls.

No ceiling.

No floor to support himself upon.

Just crimson all around.

As if nothing could get any worse, then, the old man heard a high-pitched, squeaky clearing of someone’s throat.

His head snapped all around him, his eyes bloodshot, his veins as red as the room around him as he searched for the sound’s origin.

Nearly sending him bolting to the other end of the corridor, then, he found it, as with an echoing voice, the sunflower proclaimed, “So doth the final hour chime, but whosoever has the time to sit and dread until they’re dead? I say, as you lie in bed, to grab a hand, to keep a head.”   


His fingers trembling then, both from old age and from fear, George watched as the sunflower shrank into the wall.

And as the clock struck midnight, its chime ringing so loud that the old man swore he could feel his ears pop right off of his head, a grand door opened up in the base of the clock, its creak the sole distraction from the deafening cry of the time-keeper.

Inside the door, the man could see, was a white light, mute enough so as not to blind him, but just bright enough that he thought, with utmost certainty therein, that he was dying.

Turning back to face the hall once more, the chime still ringing in his ears, he took a long, hard look at where he had seen his son’s portrait.

And with an inaudible muted voice, he said, “I’m sorry.”   


Then, fully convinced that if he were to stay in the red room, he would face a worse fate than in the white, the man stepped into the buzzing clock, into that great white unknown, his first footstep into the land echoing out with a soft tap for all to hear.

“I would s-sooner die in my father’s name,” Dhani began, seemingly not noticing the stutter in his voice as it rose. “Then ever see him on his deathbed! I would sooner be struck down by a bolt of lightning!”   


“Dhani,” Ringo urged, his eyes growing wide. “Don’t say tha—”   


“I would sooner— I would rather drown in a pool of boiling oil!”   


“Dhani!”   


“I would sooner drink ten— ten th-th-thousand glasses of the strongest poison!

“And if that is such a-a sin to the lot of— to the lo— to the lot of you, then so be it!”   


Now fully recognizing the shifting, stuttering tone with which the young man spoke, fear filling every fiber of his muscles, his fingers growing cold and numb, Ringo cried out, “Dhani, be careful!”   


“I hold n-n-no inhibitions!” the young man screeched, turning specifically to Iyera. “And I will not be told—I will not—be told  _ otherwise _ !”

The cecaelia held tightly onto his necklace, his eyes riddled in every sense of the word with shock and fear.

There was no preparing himself, he knew, for what was to come.

Taking in a deep breath, Dhani’s features softened, his flushed face cooling like saltwater, his tense, jagged movements ceasing.

His head darting around the room like some kind of rabbit, he came to the horrible realization that he had no idea where he was.   
  



	62. Of Stallions in Fields and Vines in Flesh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a third spirit arrives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And... this is the longest chapter so far at about 9,000 words. Good luck, you guys. I’ll see you at the finish.

Dhani took a quick step back in the room, frightened by the unfamiliarity of the scene around him.

With quick, shallow breaths, he let his eyes pass over the members of the company, taking particular notice of the creases and wrinkles in their faces, the way their brows furrowed, and the specific ways their lips parted.

They seemed just as scared, he thought, if not more so, than he was, their vaguely familiar features jutting out to him like a splinter in the hand.

He recognized their thick eyebrows, their sunken eyes, the colors of their hair in the candlelight.

But most of all, he recognized the sad eyes and charmingly large nose of the cecaelia in the room, his fingers rubbing the cool silver of an etched pendant at the end of a clay collar.

A beacon of light in the darkness, a familiar face in a crowd of strangers, Dhani reached out to Ringo.

The octopus-man, however, drew back at his advance, his eyes welling up as he cleared his throat.

The young man opened his mouth to speak, but before he could do so, Ringo simply huffed, “You’re back…”

Julian’s eyes grew wide.

“Who now?” he demanded, his stomach twisting like vines around a tree. “Who is it, exactly?”

The cecaelia swallowed a sob, moving his hand very carefully towards the young man’s as he whispered, “Rette…”

Suddenly, his hand jerked back.

“Is it—”

He paused.

“Is it really you?” 

Drawing in a deep breath, confused by everything and everyone he saw around him, the soul inside of Dhani confirmed, “It is…”  
  
Macca gasped, his hand instinctively moving to his mouth.

“Oh,” Sean moaned, a certain bitterness in his voice that caused his brother to bring his hands above his navel, his fingers digging into his shirt. “Why are you so surprised? This is the third time, you know, that this has happened. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. But fool me thrice?”

He shook his head.

“By that point, I’m just being a dunce.”

“I-I don’t understand,” Rette stammered. “What has happened?”

Ethelein, sitting with his hands in his lap on the bed, sighed, and with a low tone, answered, “Take a look at yourself.”  
  


His chest still tight with anger, Dhani opened his eyes to find himself standing upright on a black, geometrically perfect plane of dirt.

It was soft beneath his feet, he thought, its soil littered with white fragments of what he could only hope were not bones.

And oddly enough, beneath the cloudy gray sky, he saw that the land was tilled, separated into rows stretching out for miles in every direction.

It was as though he was standing on some kind of deserted plantation.

He almost wondered what crop was to be grown in the land, taking a step forward in the dirt.

But as the toe of his shoe dug into the soil, he heard the scattering of seeds on all sides around him. 

It sent shivers down his spine, really.

It was as though in the nanosecond he had closed his eyes to blink, the clouds above him had flooded the world he was in not with rain, but with seeds as black as the very soil beneath his feet, pinstriped with white streaks as the hair on an old man’s head.

With a furrowed brow and a growing sense of paranoia, the young man took a second step forward.

And, causing him to flinch, he heard not the pitter-patter of the seeds hitting the dirt, but instead, a crack, soft and gentle, like that of a whip made of cotton.

Turning to his feet with a gulp, he was able to see a small white tail growing from each one of the seeds.

Moving his hands in every direction imaginable, feeling the fabric of the cloth shrouding his skin, rubbing his fingers through hair too dry, dark, and thick to be his own, Rette tilted his head a degree to the right.

“What is—what is this…” he asked quietly, a certain seriousness to his voice Ringo had never heard before.

He turned his eyes to the sea witch.

“Who are you?”

Ethelein only blinked.

And so the crab-man raised his voice, demanding answers as he elaborated, “You are the one wh-who sent me to this wretched place, aren’t you? You are the one who brought me here.”

His face calm, his eyes closed as he nodded, the siren in the white linen nodded, confirming, “That I am.”

“But why?”

At this sound the cecaelia’s face fell, his cheeks flushing a noticeable periwinkle.

Macca recognized the look in his eyes, he thought.

To be quite honest, it had not yet escaped his own.

For it was not mere sadness that showed itself in those blue framed doors to the soul—it was a very particular kind.

I find it difficult, truly, to describe, but I shall try my hardest to summarize it:

It was an intangible, ever-present sort of sadness, a mix of fear and longing that arose only in the very specific, very rare circumstance that the dead had returned to the Earth, and so traumatized those they loved, so overflowed their mind with thoughts and questions and words they should have said years ago. 

It was the knowledge that the phoenix, having risen from the ashes, or at the very least having stuck its beak out of the gray dust, could fall again, bursting not just into flames, but an uncontrollable wildfire—the sort that singed skin, the sort that burned bridges like paper soaked in brandy.

There is no word for it in the English tongue.

For that matter, there is no word for it in any tongue at all.

Ethelein had no chance to explain himself, then, providing a magical answer to the crab-man’s question, thus admitting to his crimes.

Because before he could even figure out what to say, Ringo posed his own question to Rette.

“Why did you do it?” he asked, looking the crab-man in the eyes, his own now unmistakably streaming tears. “Why did you choose death over life?”

As was so often the case in matters of the natural world, Dhani thought, there was in fact a pattern to the sudden sounds and sights of the black plane.

Whenever he took a step forward, the seeds would grow a bit more.

Moving his foot just an inch, he listened as the seeds’ tails, white like those of mice, grew just a slight bit longer.

So his hypothesis was correct.

But there was no reason it should have been—in fact, by all logic, it should have been wrong.

For the world he was standing in, as he quickly gathered, was not natural.

There was nowhere on Earth, he thought, with clouds so dark, with so little sun.

There was nowhere on Earth where seeds rained from the sky as in a monsoon.

And more importantly, there was nowhere on Earth with no horizon.

It was against all laws of physics, he thought, defying each and every rule of mathematics, but somehow, as he stared out into the distance, and even as he stared out behind him, he could see everything beyond him.

Of course, he saw nothing but dirt, clouds, and seeds.

But there still was no horizon.

Which meant, by virtue of Ferdinand Magellen and Eratosthenes of Cyrene, that Dhani was not standing on Earth, or for that matter, any planet in the shape of a sphere.

He was, truly, in a geometric sense, standing on an unlimited three-dimensional plane, in some universe removed so far from his own.

It was enough to make him wonder if he had died somehow.

At the question, Rette tensed.

For the nearly thirty years prior, he had never once thought anything.

Even in that horrible form he was in, crushed between the bones of a bird, clamoring for his spot in the sunlight, he was not truly thinking—not in any way that made sense, at least.

He thought not out of his own volition, but as a result of the magical forces that allowed him to move from beyond the grave, a special power granted to him for purposes known only to the _Yaer Imi_ , for the purpose of fulfilling his tapestry, for the purpose of correcting the contradiction within it that Ethelein had created when he died.

So, in short, Rette Badinatta did think, at least in the presence of the company, in those moments he had full control of the bird’s body.

But he was never aware that he was doing so, because he was not conscious of anything but raw emotion.

And the only emotion he ever seemed to feel, even in those years before his death, was fear.

Without fear, he thought—thinking, for the first time in thirty years, with the fully developed mind of a man (though it was not his own)—there was nothing at all.

Perhaps that was why he felt so incapable of answering Ringo’s question.

That, of course, and the fact that it was a rather difficult question to answer.

“I suppose there was just… nothing left for me,” he said after a while. “There was nothing more I could hav—”  
  
“So your solution was to leave me without a mate?” the cecaelia cried, his anger over the crab-man’s death surfacing for the first time in years. “ _That_ was the best way to solve your own problems? Leaving me with another one?”

Hearing the octopus-man’s rapid-fire questions, Rette was reminded of another emotion he hadn’t felt in ages—that of anger.

Dhani swallowed.

His feet moved slowly in front of him, his eyes trailing across the infinite rows of tilled land as stems stretched and arched from the splitting seeds inside, the reassuring sound of stalks springing from the ground filling his ears.

Staring at the plants, their necks lengthening in perfect unison with one another, he could not help but wonder what would happen when he had taken enough steps to kill the plants.

Would they simply wilt and die?  
  
Or would they, like sunflowers on his home planet, drop their seeds before they decomposed, which would then continue with their lives, growing proportionately with the young man’s steps?

Perhaps, he thought, when he had taken enough steps to wilt the budding stalks around him, he would see the plants shrink back to their earliest form, as though they had all been cut and tossed in the seconds he blinked.

They would be like snakes eating their own tails, he thought, so long that they could never fully consume themselves.

Until they did.

They were, after all, living things, and what he knew for sure, contrary to much of the company’s ill-formed opinions, was that all living things had to die.

As the tips of the banana-green petals turned to gold, stretching out like sunbeams into the clouded sky, Dhani found that his question would—very fortunately—be answered for him.

Or… maybe fortunately wasn’t the right word.

From behind him, he heard the quick, metallic sound of claws thrashing against plant fibers.

The first sunflower fell to the ground with little fanfare, primarily unbeknownst to the young man, even, as from its severed head, it leaked that sticky red residue known as a warning sign to men and a delicacy to sirens—that of human blood.

“I had no choice!” Rette screeched, his heart sliced in two by his mate’s criticism. 

Ringo’s face grew hot. “We could have left!”

“On the paths they burned, you mean?”

The cecaelia bit his tongue.

His head swelling, his hands shaking as his tentacles grew a scarlet red, he let his emotions get the best of him, his voice cracking as he cried, “Don’t you have any idea what you did to me?”

Macca held tightly onto his elbows.

Perhaps he had said similar things to the woman standing above him, he thought, and perhaps he had thought they were justified.

But hearing them from someone else’s mouth…

It was different somehow.

“Of— of course I did!” Rette retorted. “Do you _honestly_ think that—that that never crossed my mind?”  
  
“Clearly,” the octopus-man said, defeated. “It didn’t matter so much to you!”  
  
“Are you saying I’m selfish?”  
  
Ringo laughed, absolutely beside himself.

“A little bit, Rette, yes.”  
  
The crab-man furrowed his brow.  
  
“But it’s-s not selfish to keep me alive when I don’t want to be? For _your_ convenience?”

His back hunched over, his eyes wide, Ringo tossed his arms in front of them, wild confusion on his face as he shouted, “You can’t just solve your problems by dying! Do I really have to explain that to you?”

“Oh,” Sean groaned, his eyes squinted as he tossed his neck back. “Will you two just shut your mouths?”  
  
“Sean,” Ringo quickly scolded. “You stay out of this. It doesn’t concern you in any—”  
  
“Just _stop_ ,” the baker demanded with a thin scowl on his face. “Just stop talking, for God’s sake. No one gives a damn why he drank poison; he can’t undo it.”

Staring the young man up and down, every muscle in his face and neck taut, the cecaelia warned, “You know not what you speak of.”

At this Sean not only laughed, but cackled.

Dhani did not pay the world around him any mind as he continued walking, taking small steps, so as to prolong the flowers’ lives.

He was more concerned, really, with his own thoughts.

He wondered half-heartedly whether or not he had died, and if the limbo he found himself in was some sort of purgatory. 

It certainly wasn’t Heaven, after all, for the skies were too full of clouds.

But in the same regard, it was too filled with flowers to be Hell.

He pondered such a thing, stopping to think in the dirt, while unbeknownst to him, the beast continued to tread through the rows of flowers, its yellow eyes meeting the saffron petals and squinting, its bloodied claws severing the heads of the flowers in one foul swoop. 

It was not until the fourth flower had been decapitated, really, that the young Sir Harrison began to notice the sound, his eyebrows raising just barely as he turned his head to his left side.

It sounded to him as though a tree had fallen in a forest, one so small and thin that it could only be labeled as a branch.

But the crack heard as the stem of the flowers split in two had an unmistakable botanical quality to it—it was not the sound of cracking bark, as the previous analogy might suggest, but rather the sound of a lemongrass stalk being cut with a sword, the sound of conquistadors slashing their machetes through the thick vines of the Amazon.

Gazing off into the distance, hearing the sound once more, he at last noticed the sight of a sunflower head disappearing from his view. 

His feet planted in the dirt like the very seeds that birthed the flower, he frowned.

A second flower fell in his view, closer this time.

And then another.

And then another.

It was not until the fifth flower was cut, then, this time only about three meters from himself, that he noticed that faint metallic smell of human blood.

He tried to take a step back across the plane, his eyes growing wide, his muscles tensing as though he were about to fall into another one of his visions, but to his shock, he could not move his feet behind him.

It was as though someone had erected a brick wall made of glass, invisible and yet impenetrable.

As the sixth flower fell, he was at last able to make out the burnt orange paw of a sharp-clawed tiger among the green stalks before him.

Blood and sweat trickling down his britches, a result of placing his hands on his knees, doubled over in his wicked laughter, Sean threw himself upright, his head drawing back like a bird’s as he asked, a sharp, nasal edge to his voice, “I don’t know what I’m talking about? Honestly?”

Ringo swallowed, frightened by the young man’s sudden outburst, before answering, jaw clenched, “Not at all.”

“Let me tell you something,” he sneered, causing Julian to take a step away from him. 

Then addressing the entire company, he continued, “And this is something you all should hear, each and every one of you.”

Yoko blinked, watching with fear as the side of her son she had never seen before revealed himself. 

“ _You_ aren’t the only person on Earth who’s ever seen anyone die. You aren’t the only person who’s ever lost someone. Because you know what? Everyone in this blasted room has.”

He shook his head, his eyes returning to the blueberry-flushed cecaelia.

“If you want to go around acting like your life is nothing, if not a series of tragedies happening to you and you alone, then be my guest.

“Just don’t expect me to be anything resembling a kind host.”  
  
“Oh, that wasn’t what I was saying!” Ringo hissed. “Is it honestly such a crime that I ask why he would inflict such purposeful damage to him and myself?”

“It’s no crime,” the baker said, using his clean hand to lift his spectacles further up on his nose. “But what it is is redundant.”

“How so?” Rette asked.

His mate held his hand out to his lips, shushing him.

But Sean ignored this, continuing, “You can’t bring him back to life, Ringo. Granted, this is a very unusual circumstance we find ourselves in, but still—the dead don’t need to explain themselves. They can’t. They’re _dead_.”

“Am I not allowed to wonder why he did this?” the cecaelia shot back. “Is that what you’re implying?”

The baker shook his head, frustrated.

“What I’m implying,” he began, face flushing as he noticed his mother and brother’s eyes on him in particular. “Is that no one gives a damn what the dead did. No one gives a damn why they did it—it doesn’t matter, because they aren’t coming back anytime to explain themselves. They aren’t coming back anytime to do it again.”

He wiped his hand over his face, a pitiful laugh forcing its way out of his mouth as he sneered, “In every case but this one, anyway.”

Dhani froze in his place, his eyes taking in the sight.

A part of his mind screamed and shouted at him to run as fast as he could in the opposite direction of the beast, but with that he noticed two problems.

The first was that, if he did run, then he would exponentially quicken the speed at which the sunflowers grew.

This could then serve either to his detriment or benefit, potentially leading the tiger straight to him, if the sunflowers disappeared after their deaths, or potentially distracting the creature, keeping it from destroying any more of the flowers as they leaned into the dirt.

And the second, then, was that running was not only a way to escape from something, but more often than not, an invitation to be chased.

Now, he had never seen a tiger with his own two eyes—although his family had been warned a great many of times that another person had spotted one in the European streets of Madras—but it did not take a genius to infer that such a beast would easily outrun a human. 

So, as more and more flowers fell around him, in every direction, much to his dismay, the sickly smell of blood filling the air around him, soaking into the soil like water into a rag, the young Sir Harrison found that all he could do was stand where he was and pray he would not be eaten by the beast.

He almost wished there was some sort of edge of the plane he could jump off of, some sort of ledge to lead him into the void, but in the end, it came down to whether he would want death by something or death by a lack thereof.

He couldn’t take his eyes off of the tiger, he found, as it stepped closer to him.

It was like watching a sinking ship, he thought—too terrible to watch, and yet too captivating to turn away from.

As he first spotted the beast’s neck, colored white, along with its chest, as though it was wearing some sort of cravat, he held his breath, his eyelids pulled open as wide as they could, drying out both his lungs and eyes.

His mind raced with prayers to anyone who would listen, thoughts of his parents and loved ones, and the horrible imaginings of his own body, covered in blood, his stomach carved wide open as the tiger licked at his intestines.

And then, as he drew one step to his left, the beast met his eyes.

With wide jaws, revealing sharpened teeth inside, its eyes glaring at him, it let out a thunderous roar.

“So that’s the problem,” Ethelein said. “In essentially every other case, this wouldn’t happen—the dead would stay dead. But this time, it did.”

“I still don’t a give a damn what any old dead man did while he was alive.”  
  
“Then do you not care for anything John Locke did in his life?” Julian posed, a bit afraid to ask such a thing, knowing his brother would likely react very strongly.

And he was right in thinking this, of course, Sean immediately shooting back, “ _No_ . And if you would all stop and listen to what I’m saying for half a second , you would know that.”  
  
“Well then,” Macca cried, having had far too much of the young man’s stubborn-headed philosophy in the past month. “What are you saying?”

“For God’s sake,” the young man raged. “Nobody should have to demand an explanation from the dead! Even in cases like this, where they come back, it isn’t fair to bombard them with questions they wouldn’t have to answer otherwise. It’s ludicrous!”

“But it’s only natural!” Ringo argued. “You have to wonder why people did the things they did!”

“And at some point,” Sean shot back. “You have to stop wondering and move on with your life. The past is the past.”  
  
“But what are we,” Yoko interrupted, her brow furrowed. “If not the products of our pasts?”  
  
To this her son had no reply.

“Wasn’t this whole thing—this prophecy, these emotions we find ourselves feeling in response to these ghosts—Isn’t that all this is? Remnants of our pasts coming back to haunt us?”

The young man’s face flushed tomato-red.

Looking at her, watching her tilt her head as the soft words fell out of his mouth like water down a stream, he couldn’t help but be reminded of those twenty years and five days he had spent sitting with his mother in the past.

That was the problem with her, he thought. That was why she was so vehemently opposed to his idea.

It would kill her to step into the present, so his mind said, having spent twenty years in the past, collecting drawings and clothing and bloodstained glasses all in the name of preserving those days gone by.

Preserving the past was one thing, he reminded himself.

But refusing to move on from it was a separate issue entirely.

If he were a better man, he thought, more bold than he was, then it would have been at that moment that he confronted the woman about this.

But he was not that man.

He was an obedient boy, one who wouldn’t so much as complain as rose thorns tore his arm in two.

Abandoning all logic, and leaving in the sand any of the previous conclusions he had drawn, Dhani ran from the tiger faster than he had ever run before, his legs feeling like they were about to give out under him as a sick, sore feeling filled his calves.

He did not take so much as a second to face the tiger behind him, opting instead to listen to it, to the sound of its claws toppling the golden petals of the sunflowers into the dirt, to the sound of its teeth grinding against each other as it stared him down.

He had no idea whether it was running or not—by that point, he was too scard to find out.

And so he sprinted with wide strides, sweat trickling down his forehead, his clothes suddenly engulfing him in a heatwave as he watched his flowers move quickly through their life cycles, turning from seeds to sprouts to stalks to sunflowers in a matter of seconds, maturing in malformation, their roots digging into bloodstained soil.

It was too much for him to handle, really.

The tiger, the blood, the flowers growing in choppy, segmented motions… all of it only served to quicken his breathing, his lungs on fire as he ran.

He was sure of it, by that point, that he was going to die on that black, bloody plane, clawed to bits by the flora-hungry beast trailing him from behind.

He would never again take a long look into his mother’s eyes, relishing in her smile as she laughed.

He would never again listen to his father speak for hours of pirates and mermen, of silver swords and steel canons, of wooden decks and frozen hearts.

He would never again rise early in the morning, standing serenely in the garden as he watched the Madras sun peek out over the horizon on the rounded Earth, drawing in calm breaths from the cooler—but never cool—sunrise sky.

Instead, he was fated to fall in that rich black soil, the last smell he ever sensed fated to be that grotesque, metallic scent of blood, mixed with the cold earthiness of his burial ground.

Put mildly, the end seemed to be drawing near, for the millionth time, for young Sir Dhani Harrison.

And then, among the sunflower sprouts, he saw two stallions standing in the dirt.  
  


Uncomfortable in the mounting silence, the tension between his company beyond palpable, Ethelein whispered, if only to fill that void created by mute mouths, “We’ve one more soul yet to come…”

Now, if his aim was to ease tensions, though I would venture to say it most certainly was not, then in saying this, he had failed spectacularly.

As soon as the words left his lips, the whole company (spare for Rette and Iyera, standing idly by in the corners of the room, unsure of what to do or how to feel) seemed to fall into a state of dread.

Macca pursed his lips so far into his mouth he swore they would go numb.

Ringo pressed the tip of his thumb hard into his necklace.

Julian’s face went white as the sheets on the bed, sweating like a pig in the Sahara desert as he swiped his palm against his cheek.

Sean curled both his hands into fists, wincing as he pressed rose thorns into his palm.

And Yoko, her eyes cast downwards, shut her eyes tight, every muscle in her face pulled to its breaking point as she uttered, “You will not bring him here.”

“I’ve no choice,” Ethelein sighed. “It’s inevitable.”

“You will _not_ ,” the woman repeated, shaking her head. “Don’t you have any idea what that would do?”

“Oh, how bad c—”

“Nay,” Julian said, taking a step towards the bed, his stomach churning as, for a brief moment, he looked his stepmother in the eye. “She’s right; it would be absolute madness.”

Ethelein flushed.

“Well, there isn’t anything I can do about that! I’m only a messenger, you know.”

“And what is your message, exactly?” Sean hissed, clutching his shirt sleeve as the roses tightened their grip on his arm. “That you’ve foretold events of the past? What kind of useless soothsayer are you?”

“How is it _my fault_ that I’m late?” the sea witch cried. “How was I supposed to know that he was dead?”

Iyera shifted her weight, and then, after a brief pause, her brow furrowed in concentration, she answered, “Through us.”

Ethelein’s face fell as with a hush, the company all turned to the dead woman in the body of a dying man.

“I beg your pardon?” he asked, timid as a mouse.

The woman did not miss a beat as she repeated, “It was through our souls—and particularly that of the quartermaster’s—that you were likely supposed to understand the redundancy of your prophecy.”

  
  
On his right, hooves dug firmly into the soil, Dhani saw a white stallion, an intricately woven piece of folded blue cloth on its back in place of a saddle.

Its eyes were obsidian black, reflecting light, somehow, in the absence of the sun. They peered into Dhani’s soul nonchalantly, a calm demeanor in radiating from them as the stallion blinked.

But on its left, in the same position, staring also at the young man, stood a black horse, the same woven cloth on its back—albeit in a shade of wine red.

Each of them seemed inviting to Dhani, even more so as he reminded himself that he was being chased by a sunflower-stalking tiger.

But in the midst of all the bedlam, as his mind moved faster than a hawk through the sky, he was being pressured into choice.

It surely didn’t matter, he thought, which horse he chose to mount himself upon, as long as they would take him far away from that auburn beast at his feet.

And so, panting, he rushed towards the night-black stallion, his feet and legs aching as he reached out to touch its neck.

But as his skin touched the creature’s soft fur, something peculiar happened.

Like the rings around Saturn, bursts of gold emitted from the center of the horse’s eye, swirling and trailing across the blinking voids like blood through water.

This frightened the young man, understandably so, and thus, turning around to catch a glimpse of the tiger behind him (who he was horrified to discover was only about one hundred feet from him) he used all of the strength still in his body to hoist himself upon the white stallion’s back, place one of his shaking hands against its thick neck, and with the other, give it a firm slap on the hindquarters.

It began to run, then, much to his delight.

And it ran just as well as any other stallion, with grace and purpose and grit.

The only problem—it was running in the wrong direction.

“But—but I couldn’t have known!” Ethelein protested. “In that form, there was no way I could have known who was there.

“Maybe you don’t understand,” he continued. “And for that I cannot blame you, but as I reaped these souls, I had no way of knowing _whose_ they were. All I knew was that they were somehow connected to this company, that somehow, I could use them to fulfill my now redundant mission.”

He paused then, combing his fingers through his tangled black hair as he asked, “And speaking of such things, I must ask you—several souls I found useful for my purposes, but could not fully reap. I know not how or why… but the first one I saw long ago, very shortly after my death, even.”

The company drew nearer. 

“It was the soul of a man, I believe—perhaps he had died before I did… In all my years, I was never able to fully capture his essence, but I did find, after some time, that I could use him to my benefit.”

He sighed.

“One night, I recall, I was able to place him into a very peculiar sort of dream… or maybe not a dream, but a world. A limbo, perhaps. 

“He stood in front of a large building—and I know because I once saw him there. It was just that one time, and then it never happened again.

“He was a dark-haired sort of man, the type with shallow cheeks and deep eyes.

“And that,” the spirit concluded. “Is all I remember about him. Not who he was, not why I could not take host of him… just that we saw each other one time, standing in front of a large building.”  
  
Much to his confusion, then, he turned to the left side of the bed—his left, that is—and found the brothers Lennon staring at him, alarmed.

Their eyebrows were raised high as heaven, their bodies tense and spaced out, as though in fear.

Stammering, his voice cracking, Julian asked, much to the company’s confusion, “He was Scottish, wasn’t he?”

Ethelein pursed his lips.

“I beg your pardon?”

“He was Scottish—he was a man of Scotland, was he not?”

The spirit’s brow furrowed, and recognizing this, Macca explained, “It’s a nation on the land, near England.”

“Oh,” Ethelein said, drawing back. “Well… I would have no way of knowing where he was from…”

“He was,” Sean confirmed, turning sporadically to his brother. “He would have to be!”  
  
“What are you two talking about?” Yoko asked in a low tone.

The baker shook his head, running his clean hand through his hair.

“Oh, mother,” he began. “You’ve no idea just how significant this is—we had a dream, the both of us, in which a Scotsman spoke to us as thought we were Father… he told us that we were part of—”  
  
Here the young man trailed off.

“Of course,” he gasped. “Of course it was him who knew!”

“Knew what?” Ringo asked, curious.

“He knew before anyone else that Ethelein saw us as one person,” Julian explained. “As our father. He tried to warn us, although… I suppose we were too much of dunces to fully understand.”  
  
For the first time in a very long while, Sean began to feel a bit of hope for the future. Or if not hope, then the long-gone satisfaction that came with solving one of the company’s mysteries, a favorite feeling of his, truly, that would have, in any other circumstance, riled him back closer to that sporadic young man he had been a week before.

But it was a bittersweet moment, in truth.

That is to say, it was overshadowed by the knowledge that soon enough, he would have to face his father.

The young Sir Harrison kicked and screamed at the stallion, his heart beating faster than it had even ten seconds ago as his eyes took in the sight of the tiger barreling towards him.

Turning around for less than a single moment, he saw that he had made the wrong choice—the black horse, draped in its wine red cloth, was running at full speed from the beast.

If he had not been so preoccupied with those swirling golden rings in its eyes, if he had not been so superstitious, he thought, than he would have been able to make it out of the sunflower field alive.

Instead, he realized with insurmountable panic, he would suffer a slow, painful death under the tiger’s jaws, its claws piercing his flesh and organs as blood seeped out of every orifice in his body.

And it was all thanks to that blasted white horse, he thought. All thanks to his poor choices, he would have his head cut off like a sunflower, his eyes wide as they rolled back in his head, a final, shallow breath escaping his mouth.

Digging his fingers into the stallion’s neck, he arched his back towards the horse’s head and shut his eyes tighter than a locked door.

He refused, like a stubborn child, to open them until he was sure he had passed on to his next life—however good or bad it would be.

He may have been fated to die, he thought, but he was under no obligation to watch his muscles lapped into the cat’s mouth, its tongue curling over its stained lips to get a proper taste of his blood. 

Facing the beast, Dhani could not help but think how foolish he had been in his life, especially in those final days.

He wished he would have had enough time to thank his father for everything he had done to raise him.

He wished he would have had enough time to make amends with Sean, to apologize, even fruitlessly, for every God-awful thought and action he had taken up against him.

He wished, before he was to meet his end, that he would have had enough time in his life to see the things he never had, to go out one afternoon in New York and revel in the snow.

He wished and he wished and he wished, but as he heard the sound of the tiger’s gnashing teeth, now only a foot away from him and the horse, he abandoned the needless process of hoping, and instead turned to the one thing he would miss the most in his new life, the thing that had brought him to his knees, doubled over in pain, and yet in the same respect, had brought countless smiles to his face—his memory.

His clutch on the stallion’s neck loosening, he decided to focus in on the face of his father, his lips dancing in the drawing room as he illustrated scenes of grand mutinies and duels on ships of old, describing with great wit the strange and unusual appearances of the captain, the quartermaster, and the bards they carried with them, silly creatures of the sea.

Someday, he thought, long after you and I are gone, once his father and Sean had both passed on, he would make it back to New York.

He would do everything he never could in the body of that panic-struck, superstitious young man, and he would revel in it.

The stallion came to a grinding halt.

“But then,” Rette began. “You s—you said there were two souls you could not account for. Who was the other?”  
  
“Oh,” Ethelein said, nervous. “Well—I wouldn’t fully consider it a soul, truly. I…”  
  
He faltered.  
  
“Stars, I’ve no idea what it was. It seemed to be some kind of soul, if you stripped the soul of its characteristics, I suppose.”  
  
With an unsure laugh, the likes of which transported Macca instantaneously back to those sunny days on the _Sgt. Pepper_ , the witch continued, “It seemed only… half present in the afterlife, as though it was some sort of watered-down poison. And I could not manipulate it—believe me, I tried many a time. But each time, I failed, and still I know not why.

“It was certainly some entity related to this company. I doubt I would have come into contact with it otherwise…”  
  
He paused.

“Misty,” he decided. “That’s the best way I can describe it—as though it was obscured by smoke. See, it wasn’t as though I could not manipulate it in _any_ way, and, in fact, I remember several instances in which I could fully get a glimpse of it. 

“It would enter me,” he continued, more serious. “It felt to be a part of my own autonomy… in the same way as a limb, or an eye, perhaps. That is to say, I could feel it—and I felt it very strongly. 

“But it wasn’t something I was… fully aware of, I suppose. It…”  
  
The company furrowed their brows.

“It was there, and I didn’t know it was there, because so overpowering was it, so heavy in comparison to the other entities in that body I shared, that I could not move, speak, or think.

“I was frozen,” he concluded. “And what’s strange about it is that I felt that same thing as I broke into this world—it was one of the hardest things to ever be done, physically speaking… It was as though I was pushing a boulder off of myself.”

He let his lips fall silent then, his eyes instinctively drawing to Macca, as though the other siren held some kind of answer for him, blocked by lock and key in a vault.

The only thing Macca had to say, however, was a quick question.

“Do you remember your looking glass?” he asked quietly. 

At the thought of the tool, Ethelein smiled fondly.

“Ah, the looking glass,” he sighed. “It was quite a useful thing, wasn’t it?”  
  
“That it was,” the siren said, nodding. “But there was always one piece of it we could never figure out.”  
  
“Oh?”  
  
“Whenever George looked inside,” Macca began. “No matter what color it had been previously, we noticed that it always turned orange. Not for anyone else, mind you, just him. And inside, he saw you in the form of your familiar.”

The sea witch considered this for a moment, calling his mind like a siren (a _true_ siren, anyway) back to those days of his life, to those long hours he spent by himself in the convent, reading tens of thousands of words speaking of souls, spells, and _sje’inn’a’e_.

His face falling, it struck him that he had forgotten one of the rules of the afterlife, one of those unchanging sort of pretenses that, after so much time, one simply assumes as a given.

The weight of a living soul, so it stated, was exactly seventy times that of a dead one. 

This would render it impossible, then, for any dead soul to overtake one that was fully alive.

 _Fully,_ that is, according to Sjyaerna’s Law.

Dhani did not open his eyes at the sound of the strained cry that arose from the horse’s mouth, nor did he flinch hearing the unmistakable sound of a tiger’s claws sinking into flesh, a sound reminiscent of that which is created by having a siren squish an orange.

No, he did not arise until he felt the horse beneath him begin to move.

It turned around slowly, its head held high as ever as the young man’s eyes fluttered open, surprised to find himself sitting upright on the white horse, his head still attached to his body.

He looked all around him, inspecting the soil beneath him, dissecting the hoofprints behind him, and interrogating the flowers around him with his eyes, as though in disbelief.

His clothes were untattered, his hair not disheveled, his stallion unstained. 

But lifting his head, it hit him that he could not say so much for the other horse.

Its black corpse laid motionless in the matching black soil, blood spattered over its coat at the edges of the gruesome hole in its midsection.

Standing over it then was the tiger, its head bent as it stripped the creature of its organs, chewing as them as though they were nothing but gingerbread. 

It was an unholy sight, the young Sir Harrison thought to himself, so much so, in fact, that he had to divert his gaze, if only to keep his sanity.

But it was better the stallion than himself. 

A wave of relief crashed into his body, pooling in the folds of his brain as the living horse drew itself near to the scene.

The insatiable tiger, he figured, would be too busy glutting itself on horse liver to bother him.

This assumption lasted about one minute.

For after sixty seconds, the tiger, licking its lips, turned to face the two.

Dhani’s muscles tensed at the sight, his fingers instinctively tightening around the horse’s muscles.

But then, a very peculiar thing happened.

The tiger, as opposed to charging towards the second horse, bowed its head in reverence of it, its tail stretching in the air as its snout brushed the ground.

The stallion did not return such a courtesy as it reached the beast, turning its head, instead, to the young man on its back.

It stared at him knowingly, its eyes following his every move.

And it was only then that Dhani became very aware of his place on the flat plane, very aware of his position on the horse.

Without a sound, he dismounted, standing, albeit warily, in between the mammals, the horse’s eyes never leaving his own.

“Between Admiral and Epistemon,” the stallion spoke, its voice nasal and exceedingly poetic as it began to step circles around the young man. “Has the test-taker chosen. Now with breath held inside him, the string is unwoven. 

“My words will be brief, but my speech you must hear, for what man do you know that can learn without ears? 

“In the presence of the ghost doth the sunflower lay, and as you should know, so few are his days.

“Few though they be, when the petals all wither, I’ll leave you, my dear, with one thought—consider.”

The stallion spinning circles around him then, it was growing mountingly difficult to tell what was around him.

And then, the horse’s words still ringing in his ears, he found that there was no horse.

There was only white light.

“It’s Sjyaerna’s Law,” Ethelein said, face contorted with realization. “It has to be.”  
  
Macca tilted his head. “Who, exactly?”

“Aurdon Sjyaerna—he was a Naiadic witch. The man who helped Indjyu Iffki develop soul decay. It’s what he’s most known for today, but he has a law of his own… That must have been what happened to George!”

The other siren drew back.

“Indjyu Iffki?” he asked, amazed. “Well—what was his law then?”  
  
“Expanding upon soul decay,” Ethelein explained. “He found that the soul begins the journey to the afterlife before death, that at a some point near the end of one’s life, it begins to fade, and appears sporadically—not in the Sea of Holes, but in the Sea of Science.

“That must have been what I saw with George!” the spirit cried.

Macca’s face paled. 

“But... but that would mean—”

A sick feeling filled his stomach.

“He can’t—”  
  
Ethelein’s eyes grew wide, and at this the siren was confused.

It seemed to him that the spirit was almost excited for his friend’s death.

“That’s just it,” the sea witch said. “ _We can still stop it_ .”  
  
The whole room seemed to lighten up.

“We can—Oh, stars! This is why I’m here, isn’t it? Maybe you’re right, all of you, in saying that I did not save John—that no one could do. But I’ve still time to save George!”

“He doesn’t _need_ saving,” Iyera argued, an ironic assertion seeing as she was in possession of his body. “No one does.”

Macca scolded his mate, a sad look in his eyes.

And although the woman did hear him, she simply continued, “There is not a being on, above, or below this Earth that can spare us from death, and I have to believe that there’s some reason for that.”

“But then what would my purpose be for being here?” Ethelein asked, feeling a bit offended by the woman’s notion. “I have to have some kind of purpose!”

Iyera tilted her head. 

“Do you?”

“Y-yes, of course! For pearls’ sake, I’m a _sje’inn’a’e_ ! What would I be if I had nothing to strive for?”

“Creatures such as yourself are not usually miracle-workers,” the woman reminded.

“Then I shall be the first.”  
  
“The first to do the impossible? To rescue a creature from death? I hate to say it, Ethelein, but you must think this through. To become the savior of souls, to spare even one of them from their natural end, you would open the possibility to spare every single one—you would be as a god.

“In what world,” she began, sincere. “Would the _Yaer Imi_ allow such a thing to happen?”

“In what world would he create a life—a death, even—with no purpose?” the witch shot back, growing unjustifiably angry. “Would such a thing not be cruel?”  
  
“It matters not to him what is or is not cruel,” Iyera argued. “He is nothing but a weaver—the only thing that matters to him is the proper completion of his tapestry.”

“Are you _saying_ ,” Ethelein spat. “That if given the chance to save John, if ever I was to find such an opportunity before me, I should have denied it?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Julian hissed, listening to the spirit more with his heart than with his ears. “Was this not agreed upon sooner? It would be disastrous to have him here!”

Sean gasped, his eyes wide, his arm growing numb as the vines in his arms began to restrict his circulation.

Yoko felt her blood boil.

“You would say such things about your own father?” she cried. “That you are glad he’s dead? That you are glad he was _murdered_ ?”

“I said nothing of that sort!” the longshoreman rushed to say, his mind filling with dread at the shrill sound of the widow’s voice.

“You _insolent boy_ ! You _blasted_ , _insufferable_ , _two-tongued_ boy!”  
  
“Mother,” Sean pleaded, gasping for air in his mounting misery. “Mother, please, do not speak of him so! He has done nothing to you!”

“Nothing?! Is that what you call nothing?!”

“I have misheard!” Julian cried, his face flushed deep as a maiden’s red mantua. 

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself! Did you not swear an oath to me but a scarce number of hours ago saying that you would not invoke such harsh words?”

“And you swore that you would keep your head!”

“Please,” Sean screeched, his vision blurring at the edges, both from tears and the botanically-induced agony he found himself in. “Please, the both of you, just—”

“All this time,” Yoko continued, overriding her son yet again. “All you have done in this house is insult me! You have insulted my name, you have insulted your father’s, you have insulted your own _family_ ’ _s_ … I have had enough of it, I tell you! Enough!”

“Yoko,” Macca called. “For God’s sake, you let him go!”

Absolutely manic, the widow responded, “I will let go of nothing! You have pushed me past my breaking point, Julian, you have! No longer will I accept such brazen words from you! No longer shall I sit idly by as you disrespect me in my own home!”

“Please!” Macca shouted, trying his hardest to rise above the noise. “We’ve only so much time before J—”

“You have done nothing but lie about your father, and not only to me, but to Sean!”

“What I told him was true!” the longshoreman growled. “What _you_ told him, on the other hand, was a version of history you rewrote to make yourself feel better!”

“Enough!” Sean cried, doubled over, now, in pain, to no one’s notice. “Enough! Enough! Enough from all of you!”

He tried to scream, repeating the word over and over again as though it was some kind of mantra, some kind of magic word that would make all of his problems disappear.

But barely a whisper came from his throat, as though it, too, was stuffed with thorns.

A sharp, blistering ringing in his one good ear, he was finally able to see what was going on around him, not in a physical way, but in a more psychological one.

His mother and Julian, after so many years of walking on thin ice beside each other, balancing baskets of eggs on their heads over a lake as big as the ocean, had finally come to their zenith, to a point they could do it no longer.

As the sharp sound filled his body, his knees weak and his vision fading, his final thought that night was that they had both opted to push each other into the ice.

The baker fell to the floor, his blood-soaked arm striped like a barber’s pole in alternating red and white as the vines snapped free from his skin.

When finally he lifted his weight up on his arm, dazed and confused as he took in a breath and brought his eyes to the room before him, it seemed that his worst fears had come true. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need to sit down man...


	63. The Mirror-Box

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which, at long last, the fourth spirit arrives, bringing with him no shortage of emotional baggage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last 7,000 word chapter, I swear on my life.
> 
> EDIT: Changed date of publication to Oct. 14, forgot to do it originally.

There were two things the spirit noticed as he lifted his head.

The first—the room was silent enough to hear a pin drop, not a single mouth moving, not a single lip twitching among the company.

And the second—their faces, white as doves, all portrayed a grotesque mix of fear, anxiety, and pain, as though their clothes were melting to their flesh, as though the sun had gone dark in front of them.

It did not come as a surprise, necessarily, to that spirit. In fact, he had been wholly expectant of it.

But what it did come as was a shock—finding himself standing in that bedchamber.

Shaking as he stood up, he took a very brief moment to inspect himself, biting his cheek as he rubbed his left thumb across his gashed, bleeding right forearm.

And then, knowing full well that attention was the last thing he needed, he cleared his throat, and in a meek, strained-sounding voice, the likes of which was obviously much to high for his body, asked, “Where were we, now?”   


The company seemed hesitant to answer him, their eyes empty and sad as they trailed over the man’s body.

All but the sea witch, anyhow. His time was better spent in the full-grown body of the once-dead girl, gazing right into the spirit’s eyes, a frown on his face, as though he knew precisely what the man’s plan was and strongly disapproved.

“Come now,” he repeated. “I’m perfectly well, you know, and now I wish to be reminded of where we were, if you would be so kind.”   


For the first time, he caught sight of someone moving—not with their bodies, of course, but with their eyes.

Julian stood tense, he observed, his muscles pulled taut, his cheeks flushed red as wine as he darted his eyes in the direction of his stepmother.

And Yoko met his, even after their harsh exchange, the same wild look in her squint.

It would certainly have seemed, in that moment, that the two of them were growing aware of what was happening in front of them, that the realization had finally gotten through to them, knocking them on the head with a brick, even.

Perhaps, they reasoned, not saying a word, their truce was back on—not because they wanted it to be, but because it had to be, if they ever wanted to leave that room alive.

“Who are you?” the widow whispered, her tone frantic.

The man tensed, but did not show it, his voice unwaveringly calm as, after a pause, he answered, “Sean Ono Lennon.”   


“Don’t tell me that,” she snapped, her throat as a sponge soaked in blood. “Tell me the truth.”   


“ I have.”   


“On what day were you born?”   


“The ninth day of October.”   


“In what year?”

“In the year of our Lord seventeen-hundred and fifteen.”

Yoko’s eyes traveled again to Julian, begging him with bitter resentment in her heart to ask the man a question, something only his true brother would know.

The longshoreman picked up on this of course, but was not pleased with it being as it was, a deadly mixture of fear and anger lining the walls of his organs as even the thought of speaking to the man entered his mind.

Still, he thought, it was his chance to prove himself.

And so, he decided, he would not waste his time on any simple question, anything shallow or unthinking.

Instead, he would use his wits—those that none in the room assumed him to have.

After swallowing, making certain he could see the whites of the man’s eyes before shooting, he muttered, “To whom are you wed?”

  
Sean found that as he regained consciousness, he was still lying like a dead cat on the ground, his one arm held in the other, his eyes shut tight, as though he was a small boy pressed into his mother’s shoulder, clutching at her hair as her body shook with heavy sobs.

His knees were bent beside his torso, his head curled inward as he braced himself in the storm around him. 

But the storm was over now, he thought. Neither his mother nor Julian could be heard, and in some strange way, Sean found he could no longer feel his pierced arm.

For this he wasn’t sure whether to be thankful or fearful of, as either way, it seemed to his detriment.

Rolling onto his back, utterly exhausted, he wondered why it was that everyone in the room had gone silent as stone, why the floor beneath him was suddenly so cold.

Lifting his right in front of him, he opened his eyes.

To his immense surprise and great joy, he found him palm intact, his sleeve crisp and untainted with blood over his arm.

His fingernails had been cleaned of their caked residue, and it felt to him as though all his skin had been cleaned.

It was a wondrous thing, truly, a spectacular ordeal.

But as the young man drew his eyes above him, focusing not on his hand, but on the ceiling, its cold surface coming into clear view, he discovered a second man, opposite him, lying in the same way as he was on the ceiling.

Sean’s knees sprung up like mountains, his palms digging into the sleek surface behind him.

And his father, above him, did just the same.

At such a question, the man cast his eyes towards the ground.

He almost smirked at the question, knowing that it was purposefully designed to catch him off guard.

Now, such a thing was nearly accomplished, in all truth, but to this problem—to this lack of knowledge he had—he had a solution.

He would have to think on his feet, of course.

He would have to say something so general that it could be neither proven nor disproven.

And so, holding his hands behind him, he answered, “I am wed to a dark-haired, kind-hearted young woman.”

The company seemed to collectively gasp, their eyebrows raised and their mouths muted as they turned to one another, busying their hands with all manner of veils and trinkets and fabrics on shirts.

Julian’s eyes grew serious, his muscles tensing as he reminded himself that weakness in the face of the man was not an option.

“Then you are not who you say you are,” he uttered, his low tone serving to mask the swelling emotions in his throat. “For my brother is wed to no one.”

The spirit showed a quick raise of his brow.

He supposed—and had known, even—that at some point, he would be discovered. At some point, he would have to break his vow of silence.

It wasn’t even that he had expected it to come later.

Still, he thought, he had hoped it would have. 

“So for a second time,” the longshoreman said, his voice the only sound in the room. “I ask you—who are you?”

“Oh,” the spirit groaned, a familiar scowl presenting itself on his face, made only more menacing with the vessel’s features. “You know who I am. You all do. I’m not going to give you the pleasure of hearing me say it.”   


Macca covered his mouth with his hand.

And turning to the sea witch, the ghost continued, “It’s _you_ that I want to talk to, you smug little wretch. I’ve got plenty to say to _you_.”  


Ethelein drew in a deep breath, his fingers tracing the sheets, his cheeks slightly flushed as he greeted, “John.”

Sean felt his heart rate pick up at just the sight of the man, his brow furrowed and his mouth slightly agape as he scrambled to press his back against the wall.

And above him, as well as in front of him, his father did the same.

The young man looked at him for a little while, their eyes meeting as they panted.

It was hard to know how to feel about the dead man, Sean thought.    


And sure, with no time to mourn him, he had never known how to feel.

But to actually see him—not in paint, but in the flesh—and think to himself that that man was his father, that that man was the martyr, the monster, the corpse in the parlor…

It was a very difficult thing to reconcile with.

Swallowing his pride, and along with it, any trace of whatever emotion he may have been feeling, Sean stood up slowly, at last taking in the sights of the room as he turned his head in every possible direction.

He seemed to be in some sort of box, or a room with no door, perhaps.

Each of the walls, as well as the floor and ceiling, was a glassy, clear sort of color.

They were mirrors, he thought, but there were two things wrong with them.

They did not reflect the mirror opposite them, creating an infinite vortex, as was usually the case, and, perhaps, more importantly, they did not reflect himself.

Instead, in each and every mirror, he saw the sharp-nosed, squinting man he called his father, adorned, as he often was in his later life, in a moderately ornate cloak, a matching vest peeking out from underneath.

It seemed almost ironically cruel, he thought, that in the midst of what had to have been the worst John-related argument between his mother and brother, at a time when his chest caved in with anxiety, knowing full well that at some point, he would be roped into the debate as a sort of hostage, exchanged for a ransom not in gold or silver, but in pathology, that he should find himself standing in that mirror-box, seeing himself as a man that he knew nothing about, but everyone expected him to be.

And the worst part was that there was no running from a doorless room.

There was no closing his eyes and waiting for everything around him to disappear.

He had no choice, really, but to approach the stranger.

“You,” John snarled, causing Julian to move instinctively closer to Macca. “Have got a whole lot to explain.”   


Ethelein sighed.

“If that’s the case, then where would you like me to begin?”   


The spirit’s face flared.

“I want you to tell me what you’ve done,” he spat. “All of it—I want you to tell me why you had to put us through all of this.”   


The siren turned his head to the sky, offering a slight, pathetic chuckle before whispering, a pained look on his face, “I would tell you if ever I knew…”   


Placing his hands on his hips, taking a step towards the bed, biting his cheek so hard he could taste blood, John hissed, “I will not have you pretend to be such a fool at a time like this, you  _ bugger _ . I’m not that much of a dunce.”

“But that’s just the thing,” the witch countered. “I’m not pretending anything!”   


“Oh, for God’s sa—”   


“My one mission,” Ethelein continued, a certain frightened sincerity in his eyes. “Was to save you.”   


John’s face hardened.

“And in that I’ve already failed!

“Take a look around yourself, John,” the siren mourned. “You and I are gone for good, and not because we wanted to be! George is on his way out any day now, I’m afraid, and I’ve driven this company all but mad!

“And why, you ask? Even I have begun to wonder, but time and time again, I have found no logical answer.”   


He shook his head.

“It’s— there isn’t any  _ purpose  _ to it, John. There isn’t any reason.”   


“You just felt like ruining the lives of innocent people, then?” Yoko cried, tears streaming down her face as she placed a hand on her head. “Do you think this is some kind of pastime—you—you  _ killed  _ him, practically, and now you say that there wasn’t any reason for it?”   


“You don’t understand!” the  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ protested. “I— do you honestly think I  _ wanted  _ this?! Stars and moons above, I never meant to do any of this!”   


“Then why is it happening?” Ringo chimed in, the stress becoming more than he could handle. “If you never meant to do it, then why in The Walrus’s good name did you steal these souls? Why did you have John murdered? Why did you have Rette killed?”   


“Do you think  _ I  _ did that?” the witch asked, flabbergasted. “What, did I— did I personally spill his blood? Was it I who took his life?”   


“You may as well have!” the widow shrieked. “Good Lord, how much of a fool do you take me for?”   


“I don’t und—”   


“I can’t believe,” the woman sobbed. “That your death and his are unrelated. It was you who prophesized such a thing, Ethelein. But if you never had, maybe…”   


Her face grew red as the rising sun.

“You could have spared him,” she whispered, her voice cracking like a wine glass in a wood fired oven. “And yet, you chose not to.”   


Iyera bit her lip.

She wasn’t so sure about  _ that _ .

But below her, Macca was engulfed in rage, his razor-sharp teeth grinding against each other as he shook his head and spat, “I know why, John—I was a fool for not seeing it sooner.”   


Ethelein turned to the other siren, his heart filling with sorrow at just the sound of his voice.

Meeting his eyes, the words trickling out of his mouth like poison, like blood, like vomit, Macca explained, “It was you who broke the sacred bond of a soul reading.”   


The sea witch’s heart dropped.

“Now,” Macca hissed. “It’s  _ you  _ that must see what you’ve done.”   


And shaking his head, feeling no remorse, he concluded, “It’s no wonder your convent whisked you away to such menial work—they were the only ones clever enough to see what a horrible magician you would make.”

Sean drew in a breath as he walked towards the man, and in the same regard, as the man walked towards him.

And upon seeing him closer, he was able to more closely discern his features, to see those dark eyes and that sharp jaw that so resembled his own, so close he could see his breath obscuring the embroidery on the man’s cloak. 

And seeing this, he hated it—he loathed it in every sense of the word.

It was not that he despised his physical similarities to his father because he held him in an overly negative light, of course. If he did, then he would be no better than Julian.

No, it was more so that he saw himself in his father, and all that made him do was project his family’s unceasing argument about his father to himself.

Was he, Sean wondered, as good of a person as he thought?   


It certainly wasn’t a simple question—that was for sure.

Because first, the concept of good needed to be defined.

Some people, the likes of which he had personally encountered, believed that the epitome of good laid in shooting suspected witches dead.

And some people defined good as adhering very strictly to a set of religious laws, so much so that there was no life outside of one’s daily praying, fasting, and reading of scripture.

It would certainly seem easier, then, to define what was good in terms of its opposite—to make clear what was righteous by making clearer what was not.

It was universally frowned upon, in general circumstances, to purposefully poison a man’s wine with horsenettle.

Therefore, it could be inferenced that what was good was keeping one’s fellow men alive.

And there, he thought, laid the issue his mother and brother found themselves in.

They held different values, and in doing so, they held separate definitions of what was good, and in that respect, what was comparatively  _ better _ .

Julian, of course, believed that abandoning one’s child was in every circumstance wrong, and so, remaining loyal to one’s family was good.

Contrarily, Yoko’s thought was that love—true love, in her eyes—outweighed all other obligations. Love, then, was good, which made sacrificing it, knowing that it could bring unimaginable joy, a poor choice.

To be frank, they were arguing over the morality of actions, and with different beliefs of morality, they were fighting a war with no winners, unknown cannonballs flying over Sean’s head as he ran from side to side across the battlefield, not as a soldier, but as an uninformed, impartial guest taken hostage.

It made him wonder why the man in the mirror would ever start such a bloody conflict, when the hostage shared the same blood and flesh as him.

The disgraced magician’s face seemed to fall to the throne of Saruyo, his brow furrowed, his mouth tucked like a dumpling into a vague frown.

But what sealed his sorrow, what truly conveyed to Macca that he had dug his claws into Ethelein’s heart, was the look in his eyes.

It was hopeless, he thought. It was the desolate, stark realization that the world had been pulled out from beneath him, that he was not the reflection of himself he saw in the broken mirror.

His lips seemed to shake as they parted, jutting up and down as the spirit searched for something to say, his face rosy. 

Macca had, of course, through either accident or malevolence, struck Ethelein where it hurt the most.

He was never a man very confident in his magical skills, after all. Many times over, he himself had cried the same thing, so much so that he almost developed a tolerance for it—until it came out of someone else’s mouth.

To think that Macca was one of the only people who believed in him as a witch, that he was the only person who ever encouraged the magician to do actual work, and, at the final hour, had been the one to defile him through his words…

It filled Ethelein with an unbridled rage.

“Why did you do it?” Macca asked, his tone a step gentler, feeling Iyera’s scalding gaze on his head. “Were you not taught that such a thing was wrong?”   


The spirit brought his hands to his hair, taking only slight comfort in running his fingers across the tangled locks.

It was a question he had asked himself many times before.

It wasn’t a decision he had made lightly, after all.

He couldn’t even say it was one he was proud of, considering it resulted in the creation of his prophecy, and thus, as Macca pointed out, its fulfilment. 

“Of course I was,” the  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ sobbed. 

Even faced with such emotion, the siren did not tone down his interrogation. “Then what was your reason?”

Ethelein’s face twisted into a panic-stricken snarl.

“What do you want me to say?” he asked. “No matter what I say, you won’t take it as my answer! So what is it that you want to hear? If you want me to say it so bad, then I will!”   


“I want to hear the truth,” Macca demanded. “I want to hear what went through your mind as you let your blood drop into that bowl.”

“It’s the truth you want?” The sea witch flared.

John answered for the siren, causing his son to flinch as he shouted, “Yes, you deaf horse!”   


Ethelein struggled to keep the tears inside of him as he cried, “I felt like the scummiest, most vile, most unholy beast in or below the sea! That’s how I felt!”

“Then  _ why  _ did you do it?” Macca pleaded, about ready to hunt the other siren for sport.

The  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ did not dare meet his eyes—and especially not John’s—as he whispered, “Because  _ you  _ were all I ever had. Think about it, Macca—think about how that would feel, to be leagues away from your homeland, cast out as a pest… to be resigned to yourself, being too much of a bother to ever find a mate… and then to  _ finally  _ find some purpose—to  _ finally  _ find a company in which you feel you belong.

“By the stars,” he cried, flushing at the memory of those Barcelona nights. “To finally find a mate, who of course, after all of twelve moons, completely forgets about you. To have it all torn away from you, to have everyone turn their backs on you with no explanation… do you have any idea how that felt?

“I didn’t know if that—the isolation—would last for eight moons, or-or sixteen, or thirty-two!”

He sighed.

“I suppose all that I was afraid of,” the spirit concluded, tears streaming down his cheeks that he refused to acknowledge. “After everything else that had happened to me, after all of those times before—was being forgotten.”

Sean squinted.

“Tell me,” he muttered, his voice echoing in the mirror-box, his eyes watching as the man’s lips mimicked his own. “Who are you?"   


His father’s buckled shoes echoed in the room as the men walked along the wall, turned the corner, and continued, “Am I anything like you? Are you anything like me?”   


They sighed.

“Mother seems to say it so often these days… But in light of all of this, I have to wonder—is it true?

“I suppose I can’t know… I can never know, and that, beyond anything else, is what irks me.”   


With a stunted, pathetic laugh, then, a sound that served as the audible equivalent of a candle flame sputtering before being extinguished, they continued, “Did you ever think to yourself—what, or rather— _ who  _ it was you were supposed to be? Did you ever figure it out?

“Who in your life did you forgive? And who did you swear vengeance upon? Who became your friend, and who became your bitter rival?

“Were you afraid of death?” the pair continued. “And if not that, were you afraid of being forgotten?”   


Sean shook his head.

“For such long hours, in these and these coming days, I find myself wondering—when I am as dead as you, when I am nothing but a pile of ashes in a forest clearing, what shall my legacy be? What shall my children hear of me from those now near to me?”   


He paused.

“Did you have such a luxury,” he said after a while. “To write your own biography? Or was it penned instead by the hand of fate, by the virtue of birthright, of orphanage…

“Were you as stubborn as I, driven by reason to the edge of insanity? Were you ever as imaginative?   


“What ran through your head,” he asked, crossing his arms, the pebble in his throat growing to the side of a boulder. “When you heard that first shot ring out? Did you see the faces of those in your life flash before you?   


“And if so, who was the first? My mother, perhaps, or me. Or was it your mother, maybe one of those folks from your life before you met my own?

“I wonder what you would think if you were still here,” Sean whispered, his voice cracking. “Of Mother, of Julian, of Kyoko… and the bird, of course, as well as Dhani… his whole scheme…

“What would you tell me to do? What would you want me to think?”   


Saying such things out loud, then, a cold, dark feeling overcame him.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter,” he said, his tone changing, his face visibly falling in the mirror. “I suppose I’m only talking to myself.”

“Did you think we’d forgotten about you?” Macca asked quietly.

“It certainly felt that way.”   


“Ethelein— I…”

The siren’s face fell, his cheeks flushing ever so slightly.

“It was never like that!”   


“Then why did you leave me to die?” The spirit hissed. “Tell me, Macca, why was it then, that in those final moons, you spent so much time in avoidance of me?”   


“Avoidance?” Ringo asked, his shoulders dropping. “What in the stars made you think we were avoiding you?”   


“Because you were!” Ethelein cried, tossing his hand toward the siren and the quartermaster. “Whenever I landed on that ship, there it took hours for any of you to even notice I was there!”   


“Maybe because we had  _ other obligations _ ?” John suggested. “Like, oh, heaven forbid…  _ making sure we aren’t killed by our rivals _ ?”   


“Your only other obligation was to sit Macca on your lap and drink ale!”   


Julian cleared his throat.

“I know when I’m not wanted!” the spirit shot back. 

"You know when you’re the one that wants on my lap, you mean.”   


“Please,” the longshoreman interrupted. “Please, for the love of God, can we move forward from such disturbing imagery? There is no one in this room that cares to hear about it.”

John grumbled something unintelligible.

“Macca,” Ethelein called, his tone defeated. “I hate to say this, but I don’t think we can ever reach a conclusion with this. You have to understand, I’m not… I  _ can’t  _ come back to life.

“The only resolution is just to banish me, to send me back to that horrible place from whence I came, to free these souls.”   


He shut his eyes tight.

“The stars know I deserve it.”

“Come now,” Ringo said. “Don’t say such things about yourself.”   


“I cannot lie,” the spirit pushed back. “Macca said it himself, and in that, I think he was right—there is no purpose for my being here but to recognize all the harm I’ve done.”   


Turning first to John and then to Iyera, he muttered, “No one can be saved…”   


To Julian. 

“My prophecy seems, in these days, to be nothing but a farce…”   


And at last to Macca. 

Wincing, he whispered, “But is there not one line in it, as I recall, one particular phrase that still bears some sort of truth?”   


“Oh,” Ringo chided softly. “There must be.”   


“ And there is,” the magician said, meeting his eye for a moment. “It was about you, Macca. ‘ _ He who is adorned in gold and gems will for a long time sing. He will bear many, and harbor a great deal more—history shall not forget him. _ ’”

He shook his head with a sigh, a cry, a blink of his eyes.

“It has to be you,” he whispered. “Of course it is.”   


“Ethelein,” the other siren sighed. “I’m flattered, but—”   


“There are no buts, Macca. There is only ever truth. And the truth is that you’re ten times the siren I am.”   


The company, particularly Ringo and Iyera, rushed to correct him.

But seeing that he was refusing their help, they made quick work, instead, of bringing the siren’s chair nearer to the spirit, so that he may hear him.

Whatever the magician was going to say, they thought, it was going to be very important. 

Sean turned his back, at that point, on the man in the mirror, but opened his eyes only to find him on the other side of him.

His heart swelled.

There truly was no escape from him, he thought.

No matter where in the world he ran, no matter how long he closed his eyes, he would still find the man.

He would still have to face him.

And so, his voice anguished, his mind deflating for the first time under that dead weight we call grief, he continued, “What would you have thought of us, in those days after you left? Do you have any idea, from wherever you are, of what your death did to Mother?”   


He turned his head up above him, the sight of the man’s stained cheeks drawing him deeper into his sorrow.

“Do you remember how she extinguished every light in the house? How she shut every curtain and closed every door? 

“Do you remember,” he asked, now full-on crying. “How she took me up in her arms, how she pressed me into her hair and wept? 

“Do you know that the winter never lasts? That, at some point, the spring must come? I find it near impossible, in these days, to believe it… It’s as though she lied to me. As though she lied through omission.

“The winter will not last forever, so she said, and the spring will come one day. But what if that day never comes? What if the world freezes over first, and along with it, the hearts of men?”   
Turning back to the wall, he sighed, “I just—I can’t understand it. But do you? 

“Did you ever understand anything at all? Or were you just a bastard playing the part of a wiseman?

“With so much to make sense of in this life, with so much we do not and  _ never can _ know, I have to wonder—what would your thoughts on it all have been? How had they evolved from when you were a young man, as foolish as I am standing here this day, and how far could they have evolved if you had just been given a second chance? Did they ever evolve at all?”   
“You didn’t die for any good reason,” the young man wept. “You aren’t any martyr or toppled golden statue, after all. But what would you have died for, I wonder, if ever there was anything at all?

“What—and more importantly, for  _ whom _ —would you have given up everything for?”   
His breath stalling then, the young man realized there was already an answer to that question.

And the answer was Yoko.   


“You, Tabanni,” Ethelein said, his glassy eyes meeting Macca’s at last. “Are—and have always been—everything I wished I could have been. You have in you, and by the stars, I’m not sure how, every trait, every desire, every drive that was forever out of my reach.”

“Oh, moons above…” the other siren whispered, his shoulders slumping as his face fell. “Ethe—”   


“No, no,” the magician insisted. “It’s true.”   


He laughed, grabbing his friend’s hand in his as he said, “Take a look at yourself—you’ve fallen in love,  _ true love _ , you’ve born children of yourself… It would come as a shock, to me, truly, if ever you should be anything but one of the most respected members of your tribe.”

“I’m flattered, Ethelein, I really am, alth—”

“You’re an excellent hunter, Macca. An excellent matchmaker, while you’re at it. And… and you have this  _ passion _ , this intuitive knowledge of magic.

“I always thought to myself,” the spirit admitted. “‘He would make a better witch than I ever would,’ and I find it just as true—if not more so—today as it was all those moons ago.”   


He took a deep breath in, allowing his eyes to look to heaven for a moment before saying, “I suppose… that in the grand scheme of things, in the design of the  _ Yaer Imi _ ’s tapestry, it’s you that ought to be credited in the study of land-dwellers.

“To think… I used to have these fantasies in my mind, I used to sit and dream as a boy, just imagining the day I would finally earn the recognition I deserved. But—”   


He laughed.

“I see now that the recognition should not be mine.”   


“What are you implying?” Macca asked, leaning forward.

“Are you still in possession of the  _ Index of Land-dweller Customs _ ?” Ethelein asked.

“I am…”   


“Then transcribe it, if you are able. Write down each and every word, exactly as it is written, sparing no expense for illustrations and personal anecdotes.

“Then,” he sighed. “Once you have done all of that, I want you to credit the work to the Honorable Magician Tabanni Macca e’Na’atsji.”

It was Yoko, after all, for whom he had deserted the familiar comforts of his home—his land, his mundane days lugging crates and barrels across the shore, his family, even—all of that had been given up for a life at sea, for a wife from a land he could only ever dream to see, for a chance to start over, to rebuild his entire life.

That was not any sort of controversial statement, of course.

All that was was fact.

The controversy only arose, it seemed, when the question was posed:

“Did you ever think,” Sean began, pacing in the mirror-box as his head turned in every direction around him. “That you were making the wong choice? Did you ever stop and consider what your actions might do?”

The man in the mirror only frowned.

“I wonder, did you ever have any intent to come back to Liverpool? To make amends with Julian and his mother? Or did you intend never to see him again, doing so, as it did occur, not out of choice, but out of bondage to duty? Out of pity, perhaps?   


“And when you did meet at last, having left him not for sea this time, but for this foreign land of maize and indigo, how did you feel, to see his face, and to see yourself in him?   


“Perhaps you see him,” the baker sighed. “Much in the same way I see you—as a stranger, known only in terms of what can be related to you—physicality, personality, voice, and the like. 

"But there is a fundamental difference between these situations, and I would be remiss not to acknowledge it.

“You, of course, are dead. And you aren’t truly here, you’re… a moving painting, sliding across a glass pane, mimicking my every move.

“There is nothing you can think about my words—there are no emotions you’re able to feel. In fact, you’re little more than light on a wall.

“But Julian, despite what he may portray, isn’t like that at all. God, he isn’t even close!”   


Dragging his foot across the glass beneath his feet, Sean continued, his brow furrowed and his head heavy, “He may not be the type to openly display his thoughts, as you and I might be, but he is most certainly the type to feel things very strongly. 

“He has… so many thoughts about you, so many opinions on what you were, on what you should have been.

“And after all this time, I’m still not sure whether or not to believe him. 

“He speaks of my mother feeding me lies, of her purposefully distorting the tales she tells of you to paint you in purely a positive light. It is, in his mind, the most egregious of sins. 

“But I say—or, at the very least, I  _ think _ —if she has done such a thing, then it surely wasn’t out of malice or spite for him, because she herself has her own thoughts on you and I, as many people do. 

“And I wonder sometimes if she takes pity on me, growing up without a father. Nay, I know this is so—she goes out of her way to make sure I’m aware of who you a…”   
He paused, a slight waver in his voice as he corrected, “Of who you  _ were _ .

“I don’t see her, in the position she’s found herself in, as having any responsibility to paint a to-the-final-stitch accurate portrait of you, and who you were.

“But in the same regard, I understand that the things you did to Julian—the things you didn’t do, even—those had a very profound, very real effect on him.

“He’s a bit mad, I think. It doesn’t take very long to figure that out. 

“But still, I understand where he’s coming from. We’ve discussed, not in length, but in passing, that when he first met me, he despised my simple existence. 

“He couldn’t reconcile how differently we were treated, as he explained, and so he loathed me for having been your favorite. 

“He’s since moved on from such petty hatred, of course—in a large part, I suppose, because of your death. 

“Still, I cannot be such a fool to think that such thoughts, such envy, if you will, do not continue to affect his view of me. 

“It hurts him, I’m sure of it, to hear my mother paint such a lovely portrait of you when he remembers you in such a different light.

“But I have no portrait of you,” the young man said plainly. “I have nothing but your name and face—and there isn’t anything in my life I hate more.”

“You want me to…”   


Macca gasped.

“I can’t!”   


“And why not?” Ethelein asked. “I give you my full permission to do so.”   


“It’s— Ethelein, it’s  _ your work _ . I can’t just write it all down under my own name!”   


“You can,” the magician insisted. “And you  _ should _ .”   


“Oh,” John groaned. “What are you talking about?”   


Ethelein’s face grew serious.

“It is what is right,” he said. “For the crimes I’ve committed, for the harm I’ve caused, I feel the only due reparation is to remove my name entirely from the  _ Index _ . It isn’t just, in any sense of the word, that after committing such vile acts, I should be recorded as contributing to that noble pursuit of magic.”

“And why not?” John posed. “There’s not a soul on this Earth that can say, with an ounce of truth, at least, that Macca is the author of your work.”   


“And there is not a soul in the sea that can say what I have done is right."   


“I think it’s just fine,” John shrugged. “That is to say, I see no reason why it should be so morally reprehensible to do a soul reading after its completion.”

“Because you are not familiar with the world of magic,” Macca reminded. “He could have used that information against us—John, he saw everything we had ever done and ever would do in our  _ entire lives _ .”   


Julian also thought his father’s defense of the sea witch’s actions represented his somewhat skewed morality, but of course, he was bound by his oath (not to mention fear) not to say so aloud.

“Potentially. But why stone a witch to death for ever doing such a thing, when you know not how they would use the information? Perhaps it could be for good; as a source of comfort to some party. I say you ought to have a little more faith in the magician.”   


“But this isn’t a potential situation!” Macca cried. “This has already happened!”   


“And now,” John said calmly. “There isn’t anything you or I can do to change it. So why worry?”   


The siren was dumbfounded.

“ _ Because  _ he’s broken his sacred oath! He’s displeased the Walrus Semolin! He’s cursed us and himself!   


“And—” He shook his head. “Stars, I’m not saying that we should all pretend  _ I  _ wrote the  _ Index of Land-dweller Customs _ , but you have to realize, John, this isn’t just something you can shrug off.”   


“Maybe not,” the man in the body of his mirror-image said. “But if you spend your entire life brooding about some debt a dead man owes you, then you’ll never be happy—you won’t even be close to it.”

Yoko pursed her lips.

Julian crossed his arms.

“I’ll tell you something I’ve learned,” John said after a pause. “And it took me my entire life to figure out, but here it goes—there isn’t any satisfaction to be had in living your life as someone else’s enemy, as someone else’s least favorite person on Earth. 

“I think when you define yourself specifically in terms of who’s against you, what’s against you… you’re only setting yourself up to lose. 

“You’ll spend your whole life angry about _ something _ —and I know because I’ve done it. It’s not very difficult to do, to blame every one of your problems on someone else. But at some point, expect some kind of consequence.

“It would seem the topic here is changing,” he laughed. “And so I’ll keep this brief, but in the end—you just have to let the past be the past. Don’t stone a man to death because he frowned in your direction, and don’t stockpile someone’s letters and refuse to speak to them because they said something in poor taste. Just move on with your life. 

“Think about bread and babes,” he joked. “You can’t have either if you’re so concerned with shouting at a dead man. So make peace with the past. Or at the very least, realize that it’s behind you.”

“But then…” Ethelein stammered. “What am I supposed to do? Am I not supposed to face any consequences for my actions?”   


“Is death not a sufficient consequence for you?”

“Well— well there has to be  _ something _ ! I can’t just believe that I’m here for no reason!”   


“And I’m sure there is one,” John sighed. “But it’s not to lacerate yourself and cry, ‘ _ woe is me, the scummiest scum that ever hath scumm’d _ .’”

Staring up at the ceiling, Sean began, “I suppose it’s simple familiarity that binds you and I, not only in a literal sense, but in a psychological one.   


“That is to say, I suppose I so resent the connection between us, in such trying times, purely on account of its connotation.

“As the whole world— _ my  _ whole world—goes to war around me, screaming and shouting about rose-and-charcoal-tinted lenses, arguing incessantly over what was and was not, as well as what should be, or should have been—I feel increasingly that any hill I choose, I’ll die upon.

“It’s Mother and Julian, it is, playing me like an ace, as a pawn they can use to prove their point.

"They tell me that surely, I must have some memory of you. Surely, I must remember the way you were.

“And it is not that I am an amnesiac, per say, but in such scenarios, it’s helpful to pretend to be one.

“Of course I remember things about you. I remember roses and harpsichords, anger and shouting.

“I remember the winter, and I remember the spring.”

He sighed.

“And therein lies my problem, I feel. My memories paint no clear picture—it’s a blank white canvass.   


“But still march the troops, and still exchanged are their ransoms.

“If I was not the man I was, perhaps I would be the one to draft the peace treaty. Perhaps I would break down and kill all of the soldiers myself, declaring the hostage the winner of the war.

“But in the same way I have no opinion on you, I have no willpower to do such a thing.

“Even if I weren’t such a coward, it would be too much of a risk to stand up and do anything. 

“It’s a lonely life for the Witches’ Boy,” he muttered. “The only people he has are his mother and brother.

“Which means he can’t sacrifice either of them.”

Exhausted by himself, by the world around him, and by the situation he found himself in then, Sean pressed his fingers up against the wall, touching for the first time, at least in his own mind, his father’s hand. 

“I wonder if you ever felt such a thing, that you were being torn in half. That you had no one to turn to.”   


He paused.

“That you had nowhere to run.”   


Closing his eyes for a moment, he let out a sigh.

And then came a sound, reverberating and echoing like an owl’s call in the mirror-box. 

“If nothing can be done, saith the mind,” a peculiar voice called. “Then nothing can. But such thinking is for only a nowhere man.”

Strangely, Sean did not ponder the voice.

Instead, as he considered its proposition, gazing deep into the eyes of the man on the other side of the glass, he thought to himself that the words came directly from the dead man’s mouth, to him, somehow, in his time of need.

He was looking at the nowhere man, he thought, at least as described in the sea witch’s prophecy.

With a nod, drawing just barely back from the man, he said, confident, “Then it is a very good thing, I say—that I am a somewhere man.”

And then, swallowing his cowardice, he placed his foot behind him, and positioning the toe of his shoe just so, he slammed it down against the glass and braced himself for impact.

Cracks appeared immediately in its surface, like that of an eggshell.

Moving his other foot to the same latitude, he repeated his actions, a bit frightened by the sheer weight of the hit.

He dug the heel of his left foot harder into the glass, making sure to take a good, final look at the man in the mirror as he prepared to face whatever awaited him beneath the box.

Sinking into the white light, he was pleased to see his own face staring back at him. 

For a brief moment, Julian’s eyes met those of his stepmother.

And for an equally brief moment, Yoko’s met those of her stepson.

Surely, they each thought, as such a thing came to fruition, the other shared their sudden thought, the slow realization of their faults creeping up behind them, wrapping its fingers around their legs as they shuddered.

“But surely,” Julian said carefully, more focused on his stepmother than the hypnotizing hybrid of his brother and father he was pretending to speak to. “A path curved sharply in the opposite direction is just as harmful.”   


“In optimism?”   


“Aye—when a man lives his life believing that he is free from fault, assuming everything shall all be well and good, and trusting everyone, then he is just as foolish, setting himself up for failure in the same manner as the pessimist.”   


“I… suppose so,” John laughed. “You could ask George, there, and I bet he would agree with me on this—you can never really live a life swearing to be anything, or believing that something will or will not happen, because people aren’t that simple—they don’t fit into boxes.

“People change,” he said. “And people grow. They make some bad choices and they make some good ones. And sometimes, a bad choice leads to a good outcome.

“It’s a jesterous sort of gamble that some madman put us in—this life, or whatever it is. You have to sit down and be willing to be blind if you ever want to win.”   
With this, then, the room fell silent.

Questions still hung high in the air, their answers just eluding the company’s grasp.

Thoughts still circled in their minds, their eyes still darting occasionally to those members of the group they had come to make their foes.

But it seemed that everything was a bit more calm, if it was any consultation.

Rette crossed his arms.

“If you’re so smart,” he began. “Then perhaps you can tell us why Ethelein is here—he couldn’t save you, after all, and he can’t save anyone else in this room. So tell us—why has he come here with seemingly no purpose?”   


John laughed.

“You flatter me, Dhani Spelled With an H. But I don’t think I’m smart enough for that.”


	64. The Riddidiyan Question

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a question is posed to the company—why?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So you know how I said that would be the last short chapter... I lied.
> 
> (You can yell at me in the comments below)

“But there has to be some purpose,” Ethelein protested. “Maybe we don’t know it, but there simply has to be one!”  
  
“And did it ever occur to you,” John asked. “That you might only be out of sheer coincidence? Why should there be any reason at all?”  
  
Macca’s shoulders slumped.

As much as he loved the human race, he was beginning to grow very tired of having to explain his species’ philosophy to them.

“Because,” he sighed. “Nothing in this life is an accident. It’s not out of sheer coincidence that you or I are here, or that we met, or even that you died and I lived.

“None of that is just out of coincidence—it’s all woven into the _Yaer Imi’s_ tapestry.”  
  
“So we have no free will at all?” Julian asked, confused.

The siren nodded.

“None whatsoever.”

“And so,” Ethelein confirmed. “There is a reason for everything—good or bad. We aren’t here for nothing, necessarily, but we may not be here for only ourselves.”  
  
Julian furrowed his brow.

“And what do you mean by that, exactly?”  
  
“There are some schools of thought,” the sea witch explained. “That state certain people in this world exist, doing the things they’re meant to do not out of some duty to fulfill their corner on the tapestry of the _Yaer Imi_ , but instead to affect someone else’s, for better or for worse. 

“Their own lives, so the reasoning goes, are miniscule in comparison to the effects their actions have on other peoples’—twofold, threefold, fourfold, perhaps.  
  
“They do something, or, as is usually the case, a great multitude of things so impactful to one person or many other peoples’ minds, so impactful to the way their lives progress, that their ultimate purpose in life is not to fulfill their own lives, but to affect others.

“We call them _antasja_ ,” he concluded. “The stem for the leaves.”  
  
“But if that is the case,” Julian reasoned. “Then why would the _Yaer Imi_ allow for people to use this power in the wrong way? In the opposite direction, perhaps, affecting someone’s life in a negative way?”  
  
“Why would there be _antasja_ who bring only suffering,” Rette added, a dull, almost nostalgic pain in his voice.

Ethelein sighed.  
  
“I’m surprised that you of all people should ask such a thing, being a seaman yourself, but nevertheless, I will answer—You heard me it said already, truly. The _Yaer Imi_ holds no regard in his heart for whether we fail or succeed, whether do good in our lives or do nothing but court the scorn of those around us.

“And he can’t—that’s a job better left for the Sea of Holes, to decide what is good and bad. It’s a job for the Sea of Green and the Sea of Stars to reward those who do good, and it’s a job for the Sea of Monsters to punish those who do bad. 

“But the Sea of Nothing does just that—nothing. There isn’t anyone or anything there but the _Yaer Imi_ and the loom on which he weaves his tapestry. And there aren’t any thoughts in his head but what to add next. He thinks of nothing but how he can reach whatever outcome he has in mind for our universe—and it doesn’t matter to him whether that’s a peaceful blink of the eye before nothingness, or the world sinking into a fiery Hell.

“In short,” the magician concluded. “The _Yaer Imi_ does not dictate what is good and what is bad—he pays no mind to it, in fact. All he does is sit and weave. And seeing that that is the case, I think it possible that Macca could have been right—that I could be here only to face the consequences of my actions.”  
He hung his head in shame.

“I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner.”  
  
A deafening silence echoed out in the room then.

No one knew exactly what to say to the impartiality of the weaver.

But everyone knew it was true, from Rette, whose purpose seemed only to be to watch his life go from bad to worse, to Julian, who had spent and would continue to spend his whole life grappling with the meaning of the life and death of his father, to Macca, who had lived a long, fulfilling life full of great success and greater meaning.

Of course, not everyone was willing to accept the witch’s proclamation at face value.

Maybe it was just out of the tension in the room, or maybe it just bothered her to hear any person berate themselves, but in the end, it was Iyera who questioned, “If that is so, and you have returned to this life only as punishment, than why have we?”  
All eyes in the bedchamber turned to her.

“After all, it was not out of want that we came. And by your own logic, it was not just a simple product of your desire to complete your life’s purpose as a _sje’inn’a’e_ , seeing that nothing in this world happens without a reason.

“So why, then,” she asked. “Have we come into this room with you, facing each and every one of you specifically? Why us, and why not someone else? Why you, and not someone else?”  
  
At this the company seemed to pause, to consider the woman’s query.  
  
“I’m not entirely sure if we’re able to say,” Ringo sighed. “We can wonder all we like, but only the stars will ever know if we’re right.”

“But does that mean it’s not worth trying?” Iyera shot back. “Given the complexity of the whole thing, I’d venture to say that there can’t be any single solid reason. More likely, there are multiple—a whole slew of answers, or at the very least, a whole slew of inferences we can come to! And with such odds in our favor, why should we sit back as fools and not risk wondering?”

Yoko pursed her lips.

“I suppose we’re just afraid of the answers we’ll come to,” she said. “I can’t possibly imagine they’ll be the ones we want to hear.”

“Then it’s all the more important that we hear them,” Macca muttered. “So I suppose we should begin to turn to ourselves for the answer, and not to each other. But before we do anything, before we start, I ought to say something.”   
Taking a deep breath, he began, “Ethelein… when I said earlier that your being here must be some sort of divine reparation, that it had to be cleverness, and not prejudice, that drew your convent to send you away…”  
  
He hesitated.

And then, not daring to look the magician in the eye, he said, “I was… not correct. And I need you to know I didn’t mean it. And I shouldn’t have said it. I recognize that, I do.

“I suppose,” he said, his face flushed. “That all I really was doing was being angry at you, but… hearing John’s speech, it—it became very clear to me, undeniably so, that I was being nothing but unjustifiably scornful, rude, _brash_ , even.

“I know why your chaplain sent you away,” he sighed, an ache in his heart as he thought of his daughter. “And you do, too. I was just too upset with you to admit it.”

Ethelein nodded, a hollow look in his eyes as he murmured, “You are forgiven.”  
  
And then, uncomfortable in the silence that followed, Macca let out a pained, very clearly forced laugh, a sort of sound that just seemed to beg for those days gone by back.

“You know,” he said. “If anything, I’d almost say that’s why John’s here—to knock some common sense into me.”  
  
The quartermaster smirked.

“Or maybe all of us,” Yoko sighed, alluding gently to her stepson.

John crossed his arms, hearing this, a slight smile on his face as he explained, “You flatter me. But it’s quite a broad sort of reasoning, don’t you think? I feel that if ever there was a reason for my being here, it would be more refined than to just teach you all an unspecified thing or two.”

“Exactly,” Ethelein sighed. “Still, I fear that if we venture too far into the details, we’ll lose ourselves from what would be our original purpose of such introspection.”

“Then we’ll do nothing of the sort,” Rette said. “At the same time maintaining a certain degree of refinement in our consciousness.” 

Macca nodded, a serious air about him as he announced, “And so, after being drowned, poisoned, haunted, taunted, and putting up with each other for thirty or so moons, I suppose we’ve come across the hardest challenge of all—speaking to ourselves about our own and other peoples’ purposes for being here.”

“Have we any ideas so far?” he asked.

On this, the company thought for a moment. 

“Any thought at all, on any person’s purpose, would be helpful. It might aid us in safely ridding this world of their souls, to make sure they can never come back.”

That phrase triggered something in Yoko.

It occurred to her, in that room, very suddenly, that she was standing in front of her husband.

Her husband who had been dead for twenty years, she thought, with whom she had laughed and cried, was only a couple of feet away from her. 

He was so close, she could almost reach out and touch him—she could feel warmth in his fingers, feel life in his eyes.

And yet, in the same regard, she was not looking at that man she knew at all—she was looking at his son.

They were very much like each other, she thought to herself, but to hear John’s voice, his mannerisms, and his pattern of speech, all juxtaposed against Sean’s body, was absolutely surreal.

It made her notice, for the very first time, the temperment of her own son.

Where he would have squinted his eyes and raised his voice an octave, his cheeks flushing and his words quick, his father was calm.

Where he kept his philosophies to himself, preferring that his most personal thoughts stayed inside the walls of his mind, his father simply tilted his head, gave half a smile, and with a furrowed brow, explained his thoughts on whatever the topic of conversation happened to be about.

There were similarities between the two, sure—they both lacked a critical amount of foresight, in both literal and metaphorical terms, and they were both stubborn as an ass, their fingers not only wrapped around, but strangling the neck of any and every trivial theory they developed.

“If for nothing else,” she said slowly. “Then I suppose the purpose of these souls fitting into these bodies is to show us precisely what differences exist between them.”

“And the similarities,” Ringo sighed. “It’s astonishing, to me, how much of each of them I see in you all.”

Ethelein nodded.

“That would make sense, of course. But is it really so pronounced? I can’t for the life of me understand what I would have in common with the captain’s daughter.”

“Oh, dear,” Julian said, his tone a bit frightened as he shook his head. “You sound just like her sometimes!”

The sea witch smiled, a bit confused.

“How so?” he asked, quizzical.

The longshoreman tossed an arm in the air. “Heavens, you both speak as though you were some kind of role in a play! She’s very gifted when it comes to words, of course—a sister of the page and plume.”

His brow furrowed.

“And I’ve noticed you both to be very clever—quite observant, I suppose, and very dedicated to matters of faith and philosophy.

“That would make sense. Another thing about the both of you—as I presume, anyway, considering I’ve only known you for so long—is that you seem to need some kind of purpose in order to function. There isn’t anything worth doing if you can’t explain to yourself why you’re doing it.

“I could be very wrong about this, of course,” he rushed to add. “Although I think it to be a fair judgement of you, for all you speak of purpose and higher meaning.”

Yoko nodded, a bit ashamed to have not picked up on such a thing before.

“That… that is very observant of you,” she said. “Very clever.”

On this the company seemed generally to agree, and for that, Julian thanked them.

Even his father, much to his surprise, was among those people to comment on his wit, and while it did confound him profusely, it was quite a welcome compliment.

Then again, he thought, it was that very man that had instilled such a skill in him.

After all, when you place a boy in the company of an absolutely unpredictable man, he learns very quickly how to read him, how to interpret his cues and triggers.

Consider it a survival instinct.

“Now tell me, if you can,” the dead quartermaster spoke, not necessarily to his son, but instead to anyone who would answer him. “What similarities do I possess to this young man I find myself standing in the shoes of?”  
  
It was a question with two meanings, really—two motives underlying it.

First, and most simply, most detached from the psyche, it was an important question to ask.

With the answer, perhaps a pattern could be recognized between the souls and their vessels, thus leading to some hypothesis on the purpose of their being there.

But second, and more emotionally weighted, although more obvious—John just wanted to figure out, if only for the shrinking number of seconds he had left on Earth, who exactly his second son had become.

For that matter, he would have loved to learn who his other son was, his stepdaughter, even.

But there was no time for that.

“Oh, Lord,” Yoko said with a slight smile. “If there’s anything, it’s your stubbornness.”  
  
The dead man cocked an eyebrow.

“Stubbornness?” he asked, a menacing grin on his face. “As far as I am concerned, I am not stubborn at all. I’m not! I am not stubborn, that is you!”

Yoko couldn’t help but laugh, a sick feeling rising from her toes to the top of her head as she indulged herself in the simple comfort of her husband’s humour.

“Perhaps it is the both of us,” she sighed. “But it is nonetheless true. And he’s very devoted to things and people, I’ve noticed.”  
  
Her head perking up, then, she elaborated, “You especially. I think he holds you in a very high regard.”  
To this Julian could not help but disagree.

And to his surprise, his father did not seem so pleased by this, or even willing to believe his wife.

His brow furrowed, his head leaned back, and his arms crossed as with a slow, considerate tone, he answered, “I’m not so sure about that.”  
  
This, needless to say, caught Yoko off guard, a slight, rigid smile on her face.

“Oh,” she said. “But how would you know that? Do you not remember how he adored you as a boy?”

“Of course I do. Still—It would seem to me that perhaps he holds some kind of resentment for me in his heart. Or if not for myself as an individual, than for the fact that I’m dead.”

At this the widow’s brow furrowed.  
  
“I have never noticed such a thing,” she muttered. “We talk about you often, you see, and never once have I had even the slightest hint that—”

“But you don’t,” Julian interrupted, a slight edge in his voice. “It isn’t that the both of you talk about him, it’s that _you_ talk and he goes along with everything you say.”  
  
“Oh, that isn’t it at all!” the woman cried, her voice rising an octave, her mind fried as her stepson broke his oath for the hundredth time. 

“Maybe if you actually took some time to listen to him,” the longshoreman continued. “You would know that!”

“And what makes you so sure that that’s the case? That only I ever speak of John and he only ever listens? You haven’t been there!”

“But I’ve spoken to him about it,” Julian pushed back. “And what he’s told me is that he knows our father was not the man you’ve made him out to be!”

“For the last time, I have not made him out to be anything beyond wh—”

“For God’s sake, will you just admit when you’re wrong? He knows he’s not some venerated bloody martyr!”

“Come on, now,” John insisted, a hint of frustration in his voice that sent Julian straight out of any confidence he had built up in the past couple of minutes. “Will you both just keep your heads? I may not know why I came here, but I’ll tell you this much, it wasn’t to watch a snake fight.”

Julian muttered his apologies.

The quartermaster continued, “I can’t speak for him, though you should know I _have_ spoken to him. And from what I’ve seen, it troubles him greatly that he knows not how to feel about me.”

“Oh, no,” Yoko interrupted. “I would say he knows very well.”

“And with that,” John sighed. “I disagree. Believe me or not, he told it to me himself, that he feels as though I only died to leave him to finish what I started, that now he must decide how I am to be remembered.

“It’s no wonder it’s his body that I should find myself in,” he scoffed. “With you two acting as such dunces around him.”

Both Julian and Yoko turned their eyes to the ground in shame, their cheeks flushed as they each dared not to turn their face to the others’.

“There, Macca,” John sighed, a bit annoyed. “That’s why I’m in Sean’s body specifically. So that these two might realize exactly how great of fools they are being. So that they might hear how incessant their bickering is.”  
Macca drew in a breath.

“That is… certainly one theory,” he said. 

And as much as Julian and Yoko loathed to admit it, they had to realize—he was quite right in saying such a thing.

Hearing him speak, particularly about Sean, and about living in wait for a dead man to pay his debt, it sparked something in them—a bit of curiosity, if you will. 

It made them ask, for the first time, how Sean must have felt about their battle of John’s legacy.

After all, each of them seemed to think that he was on their side, that he was in support of their ideas.

But upon further scrutiny, as they remembered each and every one of those times he had been roped into the conflict.

Particularly, their minds drew to that night on which he had ran away, when he had been jailed after bolting out of the house in the midst of their argument—when Yoko had called him by his father’s name.

Julian almost wanted to think, remembering the night, that Sean had sided with him, telling his mother to her face that he believed his brother had made a good point, saying that she tended to romanticize John’s name.

Now, make no mistake, he _had_ said all of that.

But upon closer inspection, the longshoreman supposed it was not so much of a confirmation of his ideas as it was a slight criticism of his mother’s.

The young man didn’t deserve to know his father in the same complicated, dark gray light that Julian saw him in. That had always been the longshoreman’s philosophy.

So when, he wondered, and more importantly, _how_ did he lose sight of that?

Yoko, too, thought back to that night, a sickening feeling in her heart as she was reminded of that horrible look on his face as she allowed the wrong name to slip from her lips.

In light of every other problem facing her, she supposed she had never given herself the proper time to think of such a mistake—or, for that matter, apologize for it.

But looking back at it, she was able to see that she had likely been a bit harsh, asking him so fervently to choose a side in her and Julian’s crusade.

What she often forgot, she reminded herself, was that her son had not known his father as long as she had. 

He was only a boy when he died, and to be quite honest, she knew very little of what memories—if any—Sean even had of the man.

She couldn’t have possibly expected him to stand on one side of the aisle or another, she thought, when he did not have enough knowledge to be able to make an informed decision.

In her own mind, she was still right in defending John’s name against some of Julian’s more emotionally-charged slander, but no matter at which angle she tilted her head, she could not justify having drawn her son into the battle.

Their parents could be fought and killed in battle as flies in the presence of a king, but the children, she thought, did not have to go to war.

Macca, of course, was not as much affected by John’s words, and so, continuing on, he said, “Now, I’ve no trouble figuring out why it is you, Iyera, who has landed in the body of George. As I expressed before, though I admit that at the time I may have been a bit too harsh, I feel that the two of you hold a very particular position on the notions of life and death. 

“That much is simple,” he sighed. “To ask why the two of you have been paired. But what isn’t so simple is to figure out why it is that you had to be. And for that matter, why we had to be here to see it.” 

“Well,” the woman offered. “I would imagine that that must have something to do with it—our philosophy on death, that is. Perhaps I’m only here to talk to you about it. To make you realize, in a sense, that you mustn’t live your life in fear of your death.”

“No,” the siren insisted, his brow furrowed. “No, again, Iyera, he’s no clue just how much it’s going to affect everyone around him.

“Hell,” he laughed, gesturing to Rette. “Take a look at his son! He’s so scared these days… he’s absolutely terrified!”

“He was nearly driven to kill,” Yoko added as an aside, sparing the details so as not to anger her husband.

“Can you honestly say,” Macca insisted. “That with all of that, it’s George’s worldview that triumphs all others?”  
  
Iyera brought her hand to her cheek.

“I can’t,” she said. “Because philosophy isn’t a tournament. There isn’t any one that beats out all others to claim some moral reward. And taking into consideration the circumstances, I can’t say that George’s ideas, as they currently stand, are much to anyone’s benefit.”  
  
She laughed.

“But though I may look the part at this time, I have to remind you—I’m not him. Perhaps you’re meant to consider me and my worldview a sort of tamer choice.”  
  
“But did you not leave me with no remorse?” the siren asked, all in one breath.

Iyera shook her head fervently. 

“No, Macca,” she whispered, knowing very well that he did not truly think such a thing. “You only took my death harder than you thought. Nothing more, nothing less.”

At this Macca opened his mouth, his mind and every instinct he had begging him to refute such a claim.

But try as he may, he could not find the words to do so.

Tears falling down his face like blood from a sore wound, he swallowed the truth, saying with a strangled smile, “I forgot… just how great you were…”

Iyera gave a wide, world-wisened smile, a single gleam of pain in her eyes as she returned, “And I to you.”

Interrupting the moment with a clearing of his throat, Ringo began, “If I may add onto what you’ve said, then in the same respect, I find it to essentially be a given that Rette is in Dhani’s body because of their shared fear of the worst possible outcome, which, in both cases, led them to extreme measures.”

“Of course,” Macca sighed. “You’ve said it this whole time.”

Ethelein tilted his head.

“But for what purpose do you believe that is? Why is it that such a thing had to happen?”

The cecaelia thought for a moment, gazing into the young Sir Harrison’s eyes.

“In this exact moment… I don’t think I can say. But I’ll tell you something I’m absolutely certain of, and that’s that the purpose of his death—if there ever was any—was to make me aware of just how important it is to try and acknowledge the problems in front of you. 

“I told Dhani over and over,” he continued, turning to his mate. “That in doing nothing to recognize the issues you faced in those later days of your life, I contributed, in part, to your death. I didn’t want to admit what was wrong, and that—”

“Stars, no!” Rette cried. “I-it wasn’t your fault, Ringo!”

“Maybe I didn’t set out the poison,” the octopus-man sighed. “But I certainly didn’t do anything to make sure you didn’t drink it.”  
  
“It wasn’t you who enacted the curfew, was it?” his mate asked. “It wasn’t you who closed down the state!”  
  
“ _Still_ ,” Ringo whispered. “I should have tried to talk to you.”

“I don’t know h-how many times I’m going to have to say it, but you have to believe me when I—when I say that you weren’t the reason I did it.”

“Oh, of course,” the cecaelia said. “I know that much. In fact, to this day, I’m not sure if I really could have stopped you… But I do still wish I would have tried harder. And I’m afraid there’s not much you can do about that.”

Rette frowned.

“You can’t go the rest of—the rest of your life thinking you’re one of the reasons I’m dead.”  
  
Ringo fiddled with his necklace.

“Do you really _think_ ,” the crab-man stressed, a noticeable fear in his voice. “Th-that that’s what I want you to be doing?”

“No,” Ringo rushed to say. “No, I know it’s not, but—”

He let out a nervous laugh.

“You have to understand, Rette, I never expected you to be standing here in front of me! For all I knew, you were gone for good, and so—Well, why should I have thought of what you would have wanted me to do? 

“If it wasn’t for this wretch of a situation we’ve all found ourselves in, then I could just have gone the rest of my life thinking that same thing! But now, of course, I actually have to consider it—I have to consider what you want or would have wanted. 

“And I’m _sorry_ , Rette, I really am, but that isn’t something that’s easy for me to do! It’s not something I want to think about, simply for the reason that under any other circumstance, I wouldn’t have to!”

Ethelein drew his head back.

“Then that,” he said, interrupting the two. “Is why he’s come here—so that under this circumstance, you might realize that you have to stop thinking of yourself and your lack of action as a reason for his death. I suppose it isn’t going to get you anywhere.”

The cecaelia simply gaped in awe.

“Stars above,” he murmured. “You must be right…”

“And so,” Ethelein sighed, his head turning to those sheets on the bed he sat on. “That leaves only one person—myself.

“John is here to settle the quarrel between his wife and son, Iyera is here to advocate for a tame appreciation of death, and Rette is here to put to rest the notion that any one person or action is to blame for his death. 

“So why me?” he asked. “Julian, you said earlier that both myself and the captain’s daughter require some kind of purpose in our lives?”

“I did, yes.”

“And you think the both of us are clever?”

“Indeed.”

Ethelein paused.

“If I’m so clever,” he said after a while. “Then it eludes my grasp why I’m unable to understand my own purpose for being here. The purpose of my prophecy, even.

“For pearls’ sake, I came twenty years too late to save anyone from their deaths. And I almost wonder… perhaps that is supposed to be some sort of sign. Perhaps that’s supposed to make me realize that my purpose here is to embody the inevitability of death.

“But the problem with that—and do correct me if I’m wrong in saying this—is that there’s not a singe soul in this room that believes they can live forever, or that anyone around them can do so.”  
“There’s Dhani,” Julian offered. “But God only knows where he is…”

The magician sighed.

“In between seas, I’d imagine. But even then, there must be some reason he is no longer among us. There has to be some reason he, and with him, the captain’s daughter, the quartermaster’s son, and George, are all exempted from this conversation, from this haunting, or whatever it’s morphed into at this hour…  
  
“Perhaps they need not hear it. Perhaps they already know well the intricacies of life, death, and the effects thereof.”  
  
Every single person in that room rushed to correct him, bringing forth a multitude of anecdotal evidence on Dhani’s pathological fear of his father’s death, Kyoko’s fragmented life, George’s flawed thoughts on his passing, and Sean’s conflicting feelings on his father’s legacy.

“Fine, fine,” he sighed. “I suppose in saying that, I was wrong. I suppose we can’t know why they’ve gone away, truthfully. 

“But we should be able to know why it is that my prophecy must be nothing more than an expired warning. We should be able to know why I was destined to a fate where no one was saved.”

He shook his head then, and at the sight, the room fell silent.

It was not one of those familiar sort of silences the company had grown accustomed to, either, in which in a minute, it would pass, its influence sinking into the ground as someone offered up their brilliant ideas on the matter at hand.

No, for the first time, it seemed the eight were facing a problem they could not confront.

Sean, Kyoko, George, Hell, even _Dhani_ —their greatest (or at least most passionate) thinkers were gone, and in their places were ghosts.

Even those that replaced them—John, Ethelein, Iyera, Rette—while brilliant in their own rite, were far from accustomed to the sorts of challenges their company had solved, to the solutions they had offered, and how they had found them. 

It seemed, in that terrible silence, that there was no answer to the Riddidiyan question.

Until, surprising everyone, it was Ringo who placed forth a solution.

“Ethelein,” he said seriously, his sad blue eyes resting peacefully on the magician’s body. “If it wasn’t for your coming back as a _sje’inn’a’e_ , we never could have realized any of that.”

The sea witch furrowed his brow.

“If you had never come here,” Ringo explained. “Then Dhani never would have begun to have such dark thoughts, and George would never have been blind to them—I couldn’t have helped them at all.

“And then,” he realized, face flushing. “I truly would have spent the rest of my days never questioning that I was not a cause of Rette’s death! And while I still don’t accept it—it has only been a short while, after all—I am, at the very least, considering it!”

Julian drew back, hearing this.

“I never would have realized the blindness I carry, in regards to my quarrels with Yoko… My God, and think about everything you must have done to Sean!”

“Your brother?” the sea witch asked, confused. “What about him?”

“He never would have fallen into any of his theories,” the longshoreman raved. “He- he and I never would have ended up talking about our father…”

His eyes grew wide.

“If it weren’t for you,” he said very slowly. “He and I— Dear God, we would never have talked to one another! It was at our father’s funeral, after all, that you appeared in the form of a pigeon… Ethelein, you must understand, if it wasn’t for you, I would have carried on hating him for the rest of my life.”

John’s face fell, hearing this.

After so much time, he thought, after his own death, even, Julian had finally let go of that irrational spite he carried for his young half-brother.

He couldn’t believe it.

And neither could Ethelein, a frown on his tilted head as he asked, “Do you really think that?”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” the longshoreman cried. “Yes!”

“I never would have learned this much about _sje’inn’a’e_ ,” Macca added, half-joking. “I… I think I would have hated you, actually.”

“Hated me?”

The siren laughed, a pitiful sound.

“I wouldn’t rule it out,” he said. “I wasn’t very happy that you infiltrated my soul reading, after all. But… if you had never come here, than I suppose I never would have understood why you did it, either.”  
  
He paused, and then, with a nearly genuine smile on his face, staggering a laugh in realization, he added, “One of the dreams I had, actually, as a result of this haunting, was of that soul reading.

“It was strange, of course, to see it all play out in my mind again—to see your faces. But of everything I was reminded of that night, I find one thing in particular that seems, in these days, painfully accurate.

“And you’ll be pleased to know, Ethelein—maybe even surprised—that it was you who said such a thing.”

“I did?” the magician asked, quietly. 

“You did,” the siren nodded, his face falling. “It was you who told me that envy would tear a man apart from the inside out.”

Ethelein met the man’s eyes.

And Macca, in turn, met his, saying, “I almost wish I would have listened to you, taking into consideration those god-awful final days on the ship, but—envy, in this case, while ruining many a life— _taking_ yours, even… 

“None of us would be where we are now if wasn’t for your envy.”

“Oh, Macca, that doesn’t make anything I did right!”

“And I know that,” the siren confirmed. “You’re absolutely right in saying that. But I can’t sit here and say under the eyes of the stars that I wish you never would have written that prophecy.

“Maybe in the beginning—those thirty or so moons ago when you first appeared—I wanted nothing more than to travel back in time and warn myself to never have partaken in that soul reading. 

“But I’ve found,” he said, beginning to choke up. “After those thirty moons, that it was not out of a desire to spite this company—or punish us, or ruin our lives—that you came here…”

He smiled, taking note of the magician’s shaking hands.

“But rather, it was out of love for us that you were destined to help us accept what you and _only_ you knew would be our fates.”

Ethelein’s eyes grew wide as the moon outside.

He was absolutely lost as to how to reply.

But thankfully, Macca did it for him, concluding with a single word:

“ _Antasje_.”

The magician blinked rapidly, his heart swelling and his mind expanding in every imaginable direction.

His cheeks flushed, the blood in his living body moving at the pace of a blackbird darting through the air.

“Macca—” he stammered.

The siren across from him, ten times the siren he was, could do nothing but beam.

“You… do you really think that—”  
  
“Take a look around you!” Macca cried, holding onto Ethelein’s hand. “Yes!”  
  
The sea witch, for the first time in years, allowed himself to smile.

Turning to the remainder of the company, he asked, “Would you all… agree with his thoughts?”

The grins on their faces—a mixture of relief and joy—gave more of an answer than any words ever could.

“Then,” he began, wiping the tears from his eyes, his voice unwavering. “If we have all reached a consensus, and if it seems I have done everything that’s been woven in the _Yaer Imi’_ s tapestry, let us wait no longer—for once and for all, Macca, let us send these souls back to their rightful places.”

The siren pursed his lips, a sinking stone in his throat. 

“Stars…” he whispered. “After all this time, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to.”

Ethelein tilted his head.

“Was it not you, Tabanni, that just moments ago, decreed that I had given you the closure you needed so as to be able to live without such persons?”

Macca sighed.

“It was…”

“As I thought,” Ethelein grinned. “But before you do anything, allow me to repeat myself once more—you are a wonderful siren, and you’ve got plenty to be proud of—much more than I can ever say for myself.”

Macca was about to deny such a thing, but the magician quickly hushed him, concluding, “You, Tabanni, are the only man on the land or in the sea that I can say I fully entrust my _Index_ to.

“Keep it safe, if you will, and let not the information contained between its pages go to waste.

“I’ve nothing but the greatest expectations for you, Macca.”

Tears rolling down his cheeks, the siren whispered, “ _I won’t let you down_ .”  
  
Ethelein nodded.

“I’m sure you won’t,” he said. “Now let us put aside such ados, and at long last, let me rest in the comfort and security of knowing I’ve nothing to fear.”  
  
“Let us go home at last,” John added.

Macca took a look around the room, his eyes darting from those of John’s to those of Julian’s… to Ringo’s, to Rette’s, to Iyera’s, to Yoko’s, and at last, to Ethelein’s.

“Very well then,” he said. “Everyone, both living and dead, if you have any final words to anyone in this room—anyone you won’t ever see again—say them now, or let them rest forever in the privacy of your own mind.”   
  
It took a moment for the first living man or woman to turn to the first ghost, but at the time when it finally did happen, much to everyone’s surprise, and even to his own, it was Julian who turned, with great apprehension and anxiety, to his father.

He felt like Hell, knowing everyone’s eyes were on him, knowing that he was going to be judged in some way, for whatever he did or did not do or say.

Taking a deep breath, trying his best not to concentrate on his father’s eyes staring into his, attempting to convince himself he was only talking to Sean, and so had nothing to fear, he said, “I suppose that… that last time we spoke, I may have been… a bit _harsh_ to you and your family, but I should make it clear that I no longer think such things. I find that these days, I would sooner be caught dead than say Sean is anything less than my brother.

“I need you to know that,” he said.

John nodded very slowly.

“You’ve no idea how grateful I am to hear that…”  
  
For a moment, then, the two looked at each other, the longshoreman marvelling at the similarities between his father and brother’s faces, the quartermaster marvelling at the sight of his son so grown.

And then, feeling nothing short of absolutely petrified as he did so, having no idea what the man would think or do, John extended his arms, wrapping them around his son’s body, snaking his hand up to the back of his head, as though he were a babe again.  
Julian, while equally as terrified by the man’s touch, strangely found himself returning the favor.

This seemed to set off a chain reaction among the company, everyone scrambling to embrace one another, Yoko even trailing about the bed to hold her husband but one more time, to feel his breath over her head.

A whole slew of _I’ll miss you_ s and _I wish you well_ s rang out, loud enough to fill an opera house, and accompanied periodically by bittersweet tears. 

Rette held tight onto Ringo’s hand, using his other one to rub his thumb across the pendant at the end of the clay collar.

“For luck,” he whispered.

Iyera, still not used to standing upright, nearly tripped on her way to Macca’s chair, causing the both of them to laugh as he held out his arm to steady her.

She then pressed her hand firmly against his shoulder, and looking up at her, he leaned into it.

“Goodbye,” he whispered.

“It isn’t goodbye,” the woman said. “It’s until we meet again.”  
  
Everyone in the room, then, held tightly onto _someone_ ’s flesh, relishing in the moment, as they knew for certain they would never do such a thing ever again.

Everyone but Ethelein, that is.

And for once in his life, he was content just to watch.

The eights’ embraces universally ending then, Macca let out a breath it felt like he had been holding forever.

He looked down at his crystalline bird for a moment, and then drew his eyes to Ethelein’s.

“Take care of them for me, Macca,” he said. “For all of us.”  
  
“I will,” the siren said, his voice barely a candle flame, and yet spoken with the determination of a wildfire.

And then, placing the bird in his lap for just a second, he drew his both his hands to Ethelein’s chest, his right palm pressed up against his heart, his left hand placed over his right.

Ringo smiled.

It was a very traditional gesture in the sea, a type reserved for only the most serious of occasions, for only the truest expressions of sincerity.

“Just know, Ethelein, before I am to do this, that I forgive you for all of those things you did in your life. I hold none of it against you, and I hope with all my heart and soul that you should extend the same courtesy to me.”  
  
Ethelein nodded. “Of course I do.”

Macca let out a sigh of relief with this, removing his hands as he whispered, “I suppose now that there’s only one thing left to do…”

“Let it be, then.”  
  
The siren moved his veil from his head to his shoulders, and as the company watched with baited breath, he proclaimed, tears streaming down his face as a frigid wind blew into the room, “Disciple Saruyo, patroness of death and protectress of the souls of the damned, I humbly beseech you, in your decisive mercy, to take pity on this man, to open your heart to his sympathy.

“Carry him up as a bird on a warm summer wind, in the light of the full moon, with arms outstretched to touch the stars, with tailfeathers outstretched to brush the Earth with his everlasting memory.

“Take with him, also, these souls he has gathered, and spread them across the corners of the seas, as seeds in the ground, so that they might find peace at last, and home, and security. 

“Lastly, patroness, grant me the wisdom, the strength, and the courage needed to fulfill his wishes, and take care of this company. Let not their lives be filled with strife or sorrow, but instead with the comfort that comes in knowing all is well, and all is in accord.

“Watch over us, patroness. Watch over us all.”

A bright white light filled the room, Kyoko’s head slumping as the breath left her body, the cold rush of the cyclone still tingling on her skin.

George’s knees felt week as he struggled to open his eyes, his head still ringing with the chime of the clock at the end of the hall.

Dhani’s throat seemed to open up as he regained his sense of balance, his mind unsteady for a fleeting moment as he wondered to himself where that bowed tiger had gone. 

And Sean tucked his limbs in close to his torso, his eyes shut tight as he braced for the glass of the mirror to cut his skin.

And as the company, finding themselves in odd positions, in new bodies, in old lands, opened their eyes, they found that the bedchamber, its interior usually so pale and drabby, was filled to the brim with prim white roses, their petals falling through the sky as Sean blinked, finding himself seated on the ground, no glass around him.

He was in the presence of his mother, he saw, and his brother next to her.

His sister sat, with flushed cheeks and lively eyes, upright on the bed, her pupils as wide as bird’s nests as she gasped at the sight of the flowers.

Ringo and Dhani stood by the door, the latter looking all around, his face bewildered before his eyes finally locked in on his father.

Speaking of George, he stood remarkably tall, his eyes just barely squinting as he rushed to his son, crushing him in his embrace.

Sean turned to look at his arm.

The roses were gone, he realized, and his wounds healed as though they had never been there.

Before he could process the sights in front of him, he felt a hand on his arm, wrapped tightly around his wrist, and pulling him upwards.

He was shaky on his feet, like a young child just learning to walk, but with a little help from Julian, he was able to stand upright.

“Sean?” the longshoreman called. “Sean, are you alright?”

The baker blinked several times, taking a deep breath as his brow furrowed.

“I’m fine,” he said, sure of himself as he looked to see his mother comforting Kyoko.

At the sight, his eyes widened.

“Kyoko!” he cried. “You’re alive!”  
  
The woman sat up, not as quickly and as sharply as she had before, but instead, in a very slow manner, the look on her face reading absolute bewilderment.

“That I am,” she said, cautiously.

“And how do you feel?” Yoko asked, pressing the back of her hand against her forehead.

“It’s as though I was never ill,” the woman noted. “I feel perfectly fine, truly, but… What on Earth has happened here? When did you come in here? And how did these roses appear?”

Macca sighed, sitting across from her.

“I could ask you the same thing, about what’s happened to you.”  
  
“But perhaps,” George wheezed, holding on tight to his son, as though he was a boy again. “We should save such tales for the morning. I’m sure we’re all very tired, and I’m sure the answers aren’t exactly going to be easy to swallow.”  
  
“It’s a good idea,” Ringo sighed. “What time is it, anyway?”  
  
“Too late,” Sean joked.

Kyoko leaned down the side of her bed and picked up a flower.

“The real question we should be asking ourselves,” she said. “Is what are we going to do with all these roses?”  
  
Yoko nodded.

“I think I have an idea.”

And so the company decided, in an eight to zero vote, that they would retire to their beds, sparing conversations of possession and other such matters for the breakfast as, for the first time in a very long time, the eight slept well, comfortable in their realizations.

But what they didn’t realize was that outside of the window below the bed Kyoko laid on, just beside the door, stood a Scotsman, his nose lifted high into the air as he stared at the stars in the sky.

Hearing the sound of the door creaking, he turned to it, pleased to find his old friend standing there, for the second time, beside him.

Seeing him, he smiled.

“So thou truly hast done it,” he said. “Thou hast gone home.”  
  
“I have.”  
  
“And how was it?”  
  
“Quite pleasant.”


	65. Post-Possession Philosophy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which exactly three conversations are held.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another 7,000 worder, but this REALLY, TRULY is the last time! I hate to do this to you guys, because long chapters in fanfic are honestly the bane of my existence, but I really don't see any way around it. The next three chapters (the final ones!!!) are all going to be released together, because I don't want to keep you waiting on things like the epilogue or acknowledgements, but trust me, they shouldn't be too far over 5,000 words combined. Thank you all for staying with Keir Moonrock and Co. in these trying times.

It was not until after breakfast, after various flabbergasted exchanges of tales from the bedchamber, those present in the room recounting who was in possession of who and what they did while there, that Julian finally stepped foot into the parlor.

Kyoko did not seem to notice as he came in—or at the very least, she paid him no mind—her hands resting gracefully upon the windowsill as she stared into the sheets of snow and ice outside.

The longshoreman was not bothered by this, of course, as he was sure that much was on the woman’s mind, and he was not keen to interrupt such introspection.

And so he did not speak to her, his footsteps soft as his fingers trailed the spines of the books on the shelf, thinking that it would only be a matter of time, then, before he was back in his lonely home in Liverpool, left to his devices with only a bible, a copy of  _ Gulliver’s Travels _ , and a collection of Shakespearean tragedies to read, if the daily pamphlet was excluded.

It was a shame, he thought, but in around three months’ time, he would be able to sleep in his own bed again—a relief he was greatly looking forward to.

As he wondered to himself who on the docks survived the winter, sparing a thought or two to the young Harold Wilkes on the  _ Lady Thornham _ , his fingers unknowingly brushing the tar-black cover of the book that nearly sent his brother to the grave, he heard the woman behind him let out a sigh.

He paid no mind to this, of course, opting instead to leave her alone with her own issues.

But then, in a knowing, almost wistful sort of tone, she began, “Have you seen what my mother has done with the roses, Julian?”   


The longshoreman quickly turned his head, taking a moment for his body to turn with it as he answered, “I haven’t, nay.”   


Kyoko smiled, then, a childish sort of smugness in her eyes as she stepped away from the windowsill, her skirt rocking above her ankles as she drew her hands to her midsection.

“I was simply delighted when I found out,” she explained. “You would have thought by the sound of my voice I had been told I was carrying in my womb the second coming of Christ.”   


It was an admittedly odd joke, Julian thought to himself.

But staring at the rosebox, its once empty volume now brimming with crisp white roses, and seeing the uninhibited grin on Kyoko’s face as she watched him do so, the longshoreman couldn’t help but smile.

“They look lovely,” he said, taking a couple of steps towards the window. “But I have to wonder—why did she not plant them? What good is there in simply dumping the flowers into the box?”   


“I asked her the same thing,” Kyoko sighed. “And what she said to me was that there is nothing in this world that lasts forever, not even the beauty of roses.”   


Julian raised his eyebrows, a menacing sort of smile on her face.

“So she pushed them all into a dingy old box with no soil?”   


“I’m afraid so, yes.”   


“That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.”   


“Nor I,” the woman laughed. “But perhaps you should be pleased to know that only a fraction of those flowers have been fated to such an end—she has taken the remainder to John’s grave.”   


The longshoreman’s face changed then, his expression shifting from one of self-satisfied superiority to innocent intrigue.

“She has?” he asked.

“That’s what she told me,” Kyoko sighed. “She invited me to come along with her, actually, although…”

She shook her head, smacking her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

“I suppose I felt it inappropriate for me to go.”   


Julian furrowed his brow.

It made sense, he thought, that Yoko would invite Kyoko and not him to his own father’s grave, but that was neither here nor there.

What he was wondering, instead, was why his stepsister would believe such a thing.

“Honestly?” he asked, resting his weight against the other side of the rosebox, his arms crossed in the same way they had been that day Yoko had left to search for Sean. 

The woman sighed.

“I do. And it’s strange to admit, to think that that’s how I feel after all these years—but it is. 

“When I first reunited with my mother, you know, I almost felt spiteful that I had never gotten the chance to attend his funeral, like everyone else got to grieve him except me, like I was somehow fated to be left out of such a process, like it was supposed to pass me in the blink of an eye.

“But strange as it is… I no longer feel that I need to grieve him. Of course, I wonder how things would be different if he were still here—and suffice it to say that we all do. 

“But I feel no great sorrow over his passing, perhaps because I am so far removed from it.”   


The longshoreman nodded.

“And removed from him, I suppose.”   


Kyoko tilted her head.

“I wouldn’t say that,” she said after a pause. “If what you mean in saying such a thing is that we weren’t close. To a certain extent, I would say we were.

“If there’s anything I miss really, now that he’s gone, it’s that we never got the chance to develop a better relationship than the one we had. It was so interrupted by interrogations and trials in that short time we knew each other… at least on the land.”   


“Right.”   


“But he taught me to throw stones,” Kyoko sighed. “Among other things. And I suppose that for that, I’m thankful.”   


“Certainly.”   


Staring out the window again, especially after saying such a thing, she couldn’t help but let her mind return to that stone man she had seen while Ethelein had taken control of her body.

In that water, she thought, she had seen herself and Julian, in the same positions they were in in that parlor, childish smiles on their faces.

That, if anything, was the relationship she truly wanted to rekindle—in fact, it was one of the only ones she could.

And in the past couple of months since she and Julian had reunited, she was willing to say that it had, at the very least, some possibility to it.

There was something about the chaos of that past month, she thought to herself, that had brought them closer together—between Sean’s disappearance, and then her illness, and now, standing in front of those roses, it seemed to her that there was no better way to bond two people than to whittle their spirits down to near nothing.

The same sort of sentiment was applicable to her connection to her mother, then—although that relationship had a head start over her and Julian’s, as the mother and daughter exchanged letters very frequently.

So there they were, she thought.

Her good relationship with her mother, her improving relationship with her stepbrother… and then there was her half-brother.

“Besides,” she sighed, deciding to return to her conversation, “I find it much better that she and Sean go alone.”   


“She took Sean with her?” Julian asked, surprised.

“If my memory does not fail me, then yes. I would not wish to impede on that, I don’t think… It would be very strange for him to have me there, in what I’m sure is quite a sentimental place for him to be.”   


The longshoreman squinted a bit.

“I don’t think he would mind your presence,” he said. 

“Oh, but that’s the problem,” Kyoko sighed. “I know he wouldn’t mind if I had joined them, but in the same respect, I find it very difficult to believe he would be perfectly comfortable.

“I suppose the issue between us is that we missed our chance to meet each other. He could have known me from the day of his birth, and instead, we didn’t meet until he was already grown.”   


Julian pursed his lips.

“And then, of course, we found our paths crossing again as I arrived for this troubled reunion. 

“And it wasn’t any better than when we first sat down for supper together,” she laughed, the sound spilling out of her mouth like a pile of bloodied needles. “It still isn’t. So often, as I speak to him, I find myself wondering—for what purpose? 

“It’s as though no matter what I say to him, I’ll never make an impact. I’ll never get anywhere.”

Kyoko leaned her head against the wall, her eyes wandering into the falling snow outside.

“I suppose I came too late to ever reach him,” she concluded.

For a long time, the woman noticed—an unusually long time—Julian was silent, his brow furrowed and his eyes squinted before he said, “I don’t think so…”   


Kyoko met his eyes.

“I can understand where you’re coming from,” the longshoreman sighed. “But in the same breath, I urge you not to give up hope, because I was once very much—if not more so—like you.”   


“Truly?” the woman asked, a confused smile on her face. 

“Oh, yes,” Julian said, sneering. “I despised him.”

“No, you didn’t.”

The longshoreman raised his eyebrows. “My God, you’ve no idea—I wanted to toss him to the wolves the first time I met him.”

He paused for a moment then, and added in good spirits, “Of course, I suppose I still think sometimes they would enjoy his company…”   


Kyoko laughed.

And seeing this, Julian smiled, but quickly sobered up.

“Truly,” he said. “I know the situations are quite different, but I see much of my younger self in you, at least in regards to your disconnect from Sean, and I truly think that you might be able to accomplish the same sorts of things I have, should you wish to do so.”

“I do,” the woman sighed. “At the very least, I want to try.”   


Julian nodded.

“Then I would suggest that you write to him. It’s what I did for a very long time—in fact, before this year, he had only seen me in the flesh once, when he was five years old.”   


“And that’s how you—”   
“He hit a certain age where he started to write very long letters,” the longshoreman explained. “I think he’s very lonely, really, being the witches’ son. And what I’ve noticed about him is that if you can just break through him—even just a little bit—he’ll grow very fond of you. I suppose it’s nothing more than a product of being raised in a place where friends are very few and far between.

“So there is my advice to you—make good use of what little time you have left in this town and speak to him. And then, once you’ve returned to Philadelphia, you can continue your conversations through writing.”

He allowed himself, for a moment, to show a slight smile.

“You should have no trouble doing so,” he said. “Being such a prolific writer.”   


Kyoko smiled.

“And I’m sure he will appreciate it,” Julian continued. “Having someone to write to that can reply in less than three months.

“So there,” he sighed. “That’s the best advice I’ve got for you, if you’d like to take it.”   


“Oh, I shall,” Kyoko assured. “It… it really is very helpful. You’re quite a wise man.”

The longshoreman smiled a bashful smile.

“And you are quite a wise woman.”

Those two star-crossed children, for the first time in thirty years, allowed themselves the simple pleasure of smiling at one another in the light.

It was a sight even a stone man would be relieved to see.

Stepping over the roots and fallen branches of the trees that pierced the sky above them, their arms filled with roses swaddled in swaths of cloth as though they were babes and not bushels, Sean let out a sigh.

“We should nearly be there,” he huffed, turning to his mother, walking slower behind him. “Shouldn’t we?”   


“Soon enough,” the woman assured. “But it shall be covered in snow, I’m sure. We’re going to have to clear it off.”   


The baker nodded, stopping along the path a moment to allow the widow to catch up to him.

And when they both could continue at the same pace, his mother’s hand on his arm, Sean took a moment to appreciate the sky above him, nearly cloudless if not for one single puff of cotton.

Why was it, he wondered to himself, that the sky shone brighter than a sapphire only after a blizzard?   


His mother, noticing the squint in his eyes as he gazed into the ocean up above them, also looked up to see the sky, and was able to discern the same things he did, beginning, “The sky looks very nice today, doesn’t it?”

“It does…” Sean muttered, his breath trailing into the air like pipesmoke.

Her head tilted thoughtfully, her mind seemingly connected to his own, then, the widow resolved, with quick wit, “I like to think it’s because there has to be something so pretty after such a storm. There can’t just be a blizzard forever.”   


Her son nodded once, drawing his spectacles nearer to his eyes.

And, in the spirit of things, she then added, in a low tone, “The winter can’t last forever. At some point, there has to be some kind of moment of clarity, where the sun shines at last through the clouds.”   


Sean sighed.

“The spring must come at some point,” he continued, leading the woman into the fated clearing. 

“Precisely.”

Making quick work of it then, the flowers still tucked as infants in the crooks of their arms, careful not to let their cloth swaddles unfurl, the two of them pressed their gloved fingers into the snow, and swearing before every god and spirit that they would warm them by the fire once they were back at home, they began to sweep it away from the grave, revealing the soiled tiles beneath in slow, frozen motions, until at long last, as small mounds of the white fluff encircled the mosaic, a single word plastered itself up into the sky.

**IMAGINE**

Seeing it, standing with one hand on his hip, Sean pursed his lips.

“What is it exactly,” he asked slowly, Julian’s old question formulating in his mind. “That you’re supposed to imagine?”   


His mother turned her head swiftly to him.

“You don’t know?” she asked, shocked.

He shifted his weight, uncomfortable.

“No.”   


Yoko drew her eyes to the ground, blinking a couple of times as her cheeks flushed a bare coral.

“I suppose that would make sense,” she murmured, trying her best to remember that the young man couldn’t have possibly known. “I’m just surprised I never told you.”   


“Then tell me,” Sean sighed.

Her gaze trailing over the black and white tiles, which truly seemed more grey with all of that dirt and snow, she began, “I hesitate to say that there’s anything you are or aren’t supposed to imagine, because I don’t think it’s right to tell other people how to think.

“But what I will say is that in the original poem—it was a poem, you know, or really, more of a song, that I got it from—your father wrote that you were supposed to imagine all the people, living life in peace. 

“Just imagine that there isn’t any war,” she said, a faint smile creeping its way onto her lips. “No battles to fight, no side to die for… just a whole Earth full of people making their way about life, not bothering anyone and not letting anyone bother anyone else. 

“Truthfully,” the widow sighed. “I would have to say it’s one of my favorite ideas of his—although he did get it from me. I think there’s a great deal of truth in those words—of wisdom, really.

“Maybe sometime, we could find where it’s written. Perhaps you could read it to me.”   


Sean gave a small nod, his eyebrows knit together as he focused more on the thought of the word than his mother’s suggestion.

He tried, for a moment, to imagine there was no war, that there was only peace.

And while it would have been tempting to imagine that the War of the Roses had never taken place, and thus, the house of York had remained on the throne, or perhaps that the Glorious Revolution, while not technically categorized as a war, had never occurred, leaving a Catholic king (and a close relative of His Foolish Grace Sir Dhani Harrison) to rule over England, Sean’s mind went to a different sort of war.

It was a battle not of the field, but of the mind, fought by captains and sailors with captured bakers in between, where muskets turned to monologues and cannons turned to comebacks.

There was never any blood spilled with such weaponry, of course, but what was spilled was tears—usually those of the hostage.

And so, that was what Sean imagined, that in some strange parallel universe, his mother and brother didn’t wage such a war over his father’s name, that he didn’t find himself sinking into the mud of the battleground, so much so that he could no longer think for himself. 

It was almost impossible to think about, he thought, for such a war had gone on, even without his knowledge, for nearly his entire life.

But there was a great difference between what was almost impossible, and what was  _ truly  _ impossible.

And so, the young man dreamed of walking across a string between the two sides, his arms outstretched as he laughed to himself, nearly toppling over onto the dirt.

Furthermore, he dreamed that there were no sides at all, that any spectacles being used to view his father’s legacy were removed, and without them, no one was blind, but in fact, could see much clearer than they could before—because they didn’t see half-truths or exaggerations, they saw nothing but the cold, hard truth.

He dreamed of being free as a bird, coasting his way over the ground as he arrived at the one place he could find nothing but the truth, its tiles alternating between light and dark, not too heavily colored one way or the other.

And as he dreamed, it occurred to him at last—he was closer to his dream than he thought, if only he could draft the peace treaty.

Feeling surprisingly less anxious than he would have assumed, his eyes transfixed on the tall letters before him, he began, “I suppose you’re wondering where I was while I was possessed.”   


Yoko, who had likewise been busy staring at the tiles, her mind bursting with memories, turned to him.

“Very much so, yes. Did you also find yourself in that corridor Sir Harrison described?”   


Sean shook his head.

“Nay,” he sighed. “Quite the opposite, in fact. I was in a box made of mirrors.”

The widow tilted her head, considerate of this as the wind tickled her cheeks.

“Truly?” she asked.

“Aye—and inside I did not see myself, but rather, Father.”   


He watched with a sinking feeling in his stomach as the woman’s eyes widened.

“It was a very strange sight,” he continued with a deep breath, if only to sway his swelling nerves. “And in fact, I couldn’t stand to see it.”   


He paused.

“But I almost think I needed to.”   


“And why is that?” Yoko asked, her tone hushed.

He took a deep breath, crouching down onto the ground to place his flowers beneath the letters on the mosaic, and then, as he stood up, not daring to look his mother in the eye, a lost sort of sorrow rising in his throat, he began with a stammer, “Know, before anything else, that you should bear none of the blame for what I am about to say—I can’t imagine it was an easy thing for you, but…”   


He sighed.

“What I’ve realized,” he went on, a desolate look in his eyes as his eyes focused on an empty tree branch above the mosaic. “Throughout this whole situation—this whole haunting—is that I’ve—”   


His cheeks grew hot, his mind buzzing with anger as he cursed himself.

What kind of dunce was he, he wondered, in the most critical hour of his life, having the conversation he had always dreamed of having, and somehow unable to speak?

His tone a bit sharper, he spat out, “I was never given the chance, as a boy, to grieve him. It felt to me that all I could do—if only to keep myself from losing anything else—was try and make you feel better about it all.

“And again, I don’t blame you for this. I suppose there’s no one to blame but myself and my childish mind, truly… But it felt as though your emotions had to always take precedence over mine, that I had no time or reason to grieve Father, because you were more upset than I was.”

Yoko’s face fell.

“And what I’ve realized then, in these past days, is that I’ve believed that for twenty years. At this point, it might as well be branded into my brain.

“I mean—you know me, of course. You know that all I want to do is please people.

“So therein lays the other problem, the other thing I’ve noticed, I suppose—I don’t know  _ what  _ the two of you did to each other, but watching you and Julian rip each other’s intestines out over the nature of Father’s legacy, acting like children, for God’s sake—”

His body warmed with anger in the frigid air, his voice strangled by emotion.

“It’s the worst feeling on Earth!” he cried, finally turning to see his mother’s corpse-pale face. “Because then, what the two of you keep doing is acting like I’m some kind of prize you can win!

“It’s—It’s like I’m some pawn in your god-awful game of chess, like you can throw me about and ask me what I think of him, all the while forgetting that I have about ten clear memories of the man!   


“Maybe I act like I remember nothing,” he raved. “Perhaps I’ve been playing the part of an amnesiac between the two of you, but I  _ do  _ know things about him! 

“Hell, I would tell you what they were if it wasn’t always preceded by you or Julian telling me how typical that was of him, or lecturing me on why I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, or reminding me what a shame it is that he’s dead, or pulling out your  _ blasted sabers  _ and dueling each other! 

“For the sake of everything you hold good and dear—” he raged. “ _ I know he wasn’t perfect, and I know he wasn’t the literal spawn of Satan.  _ I remember good and bad things about him, and if that’s honestly a concept that neither of you can understand, then I don’t think there’s any hope in Heaven or on Earth—or, for that matter,  _ under  _ the Earth—left for the two of you.”

He shook his head then, and pursed his lips.

Seeing the look on his mother’s face—the way her hand cupped her mouth, the look of fear in her eyes, the way her eyebrows knit together and carved deep lines in her forehead—he wanted to cry.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted, his shoulders slumping and his face falling, all rage he had previously held onto vanishing in an instant as his face grew beet-red and blotchy.

For a brief moment, Yoko set her roses down on the grave.

She needed both of her hands, after all, to wrap her arms tight around her son, her entire body weight concentrated on her toes as she reached up to try and hold onto the back of his head, to stroke his hair, as though he was a babe again.

And sinking into her shoulder (or really, her head) Sean removed his spectacles, the lenses inside growing too cloudy to see with as heavy sobs forced their way out of him.

He wasn’t sure who he was crying for, standing in front of that grave.

Perhaps it was for his mother, for having broken her heart with his long-withheld emotions, for having shouted at her and reduced her to a fool.

Perhaps it was for his father, to finally be standing in front of what was left of him and think to himself that he was truly gone, that he would never come back—not as a dove, and not as a reflection of himself—to answer the million questions he had for him.

Or perhaps it was for no one but himself, afraid,  _ petrified _ , even, of all that laid ahead of him as he stripped himself bare as Lady Godiva and walked right out of that room in which his entire philosophy—his entire life, really—lived.

He had built all of his life around a bust of his mother, a woman who, knowingly or otherwise, had tried to sway his ill-formed opinion of his father, who had by accident kept him from ever mourning the man.

Everything he had ever done was viewed in this way—that his own emotions were less important than anyone else’s, and that he was resigned by the hand of fate to take part in someone else’s war not as a peacekeeper or a drafter of a treaty, but instead as a hostage, tossed about like a sack of potatoes around the battlefield.

Starting on that afternoon, however, he knew that his life would never look that way again.

And that thought terrified him.

But as his mother wept and stroked his hair, the two of them cradling each other as they did on that day in the dark, he thought to himself that he was no worse off than he had been in that limbo.

He was no more scared, that is, than when he had dug the heel of his shoe into the glass beneath him in the mirror-box.

He was leaving his home, he thought, and everything that had been so familiar to him for so many years, jumping into the abyss with no knowledge of where and how he would land.

But he was breaking free from that glass prison yet again.

And that, he thought as he watched his mother encircle the memorial with a chain of white roses, edging it with the flowers as a sort of halo, speaking to him in earnest all the while about her regrets in dragging him into her war, apologizing sincerely for what she knew were her misdeeds, could only serve to benefit him and his future.

“You’ll do just fine,” Ringo assured, his tentacles a cool dandelion-gold as he placed a reassuring hand on George’s shoulder. “Just keep an open mind and be willing to listen to him. So long as you can do that, everything will be perfectly fine.”   


“I think I’m in over my head,” the taxman admitted. “Truly, Ringo, I fear it’s only going to be in vain.”

“The only way it could be is if you don’t do it. You have to remember—there isn’t anything bad that could come out of it.”   


George shook his head.

“Oh, no, there’s plenty of that.”   


“Come on, now—”   


“I could make him angrier, perhaps. Or I could enter into one of my coughing fits, and God knows what would happen then…”   


“If you do, then try and calm him down. Not through force or intimidation, of course—just through love. You want to see him happy, don’t you?”   


The old Sir Harrison shifted his weight, uncomfortable.

“Of course I do…”   


Ringo met his eyes.

“Then you have to talk to him. He’s only going to get worse if you don’t.”

“But what if—”   


“You could stand here and ask me what-ifs all day,” the cecaelia sighed. “It’s not going to do anything.”   


George shook his head, a sigh escaping him as he murmured, “I know…”   


“And I know you know. Now you think of some better questions than what-ifs, you go in there, and you ask them to him.”   


The man did not respond, a pained look on his wrinkled face as his eyes climbed the staircase.

And so Ringo reminded him, “I know you’ll do great.”

George turned to him, considerate. 

“Do you really think so?”

The cecaelia smiled. 

“I’m absolutely certain of it,” he said. “Now you go and make me proud.”

The old man laughed, bobbing his friend’s head back and forth as he grabbed hold of his shoulder, shaking it as though telling him to get ahold of himself.

“Oh,” he sighed. “You’re a good man, Ringo. A good octopus-man, anyway.”   


Ringo pushed his arm away.

“Yes, I’m very well aware—now stop biding your time.”

Helping the man up, practically dragging him to the staircase, he continued on, saying, “Up now, go and face the day! Only so much sunlight in it, you know.”   


“Alright,” George laughed, grabbing hold of the railing. “Alright, look—I’m on my way.”   


Ringo cocked an eyebrow, an amused and yet stern smile on his face.

And, to the old man’s contentment, he didn’t move a muscle on his face until Sir Harrison had made the full journey up the stairs, disappeared behind the corner, and clicked open the door to the guest bedchamber.

He grew a bit unnerved, stepping inside to find his son sitting limp on the bed, his back arched and his hand tucked under his chin as he stared out the window.

He was almost going to say something, to call out the boy’s name in a slow, concerned voice.

But to his surprise and relief, it was his son who spoke first, a level-headed (but noticeably concerned) look on his face as he greeted, “Father.”   


“Good afternoon, Dhani.”   


“I thought it was you coming up the stairs,” the young man sighed, turning his body to face his father’s, watching anxiously as George lowered himself onto the other bed. “Are you well?”   


“Much better,” his father laughed, drawing his handkerchief to his mouth. “At least in comparison to this past month.”   


Dhani gave a faint smile.

“I think you speak for nearly everyone in this company, saying that.”   


“Surely,” George sighed.

And then, his eyebrows raising, his tone betraying the slightest hint of anxiety, he asked, “Have you been in here all morning?”   


The young man frowned. 

“It would seem that way.”   


“But what’s there to do in here? I know this shall sound out of character, coming from this mouth, but there must be such a thing as too much reading.”   


Dhani let out a muffled laugh.

“Then you’ll be pleased to know that reading isn’t all I’ve done.”   


“In that case,” George began, tilting his head. “What else is there?”   


“Oh,” the young man sighed. “I’m not sure—thinking, I suppose. I’ve done quite a bit of thinking.”   


“What about?”   


Dhani shook his head.

“I think it fair to say that you should know what about.”   


“But there’s the problem,” George mused. “So much has happened, my boy, that I’m afraid it’s impossible to discern exactly which event you’re referring to.”

“That’s fair,” his son said. “I suppose it’s just… I’m not sure anyone would want to see me if I were to leave this room.”   


“Oh, love, I’m sure that isn’t true.”   


“Then let me rephrase myself. I’m absolutely sure that the young Mister Lennon would not want to see me if I were to leave this room.”

George bit his cheek.

“Maybe not,” he sighed, feeling no relief in his chest as he did so. “But that’s why I’ve come to talk to you.”   


Dhani looked up at him, attentive.

It felt as though someone was boiling a pot of lemon juice in his stomach as he asked a bit glumly “Truly?”

“Indeed,” the old man nodded. “I… want to understand why it is that you tried to—”   


He hesitated.

“Why it was that you felt you have no choice but to take his life.”

“I’ve already tried to apologize, Father,” the young man said, defeated. “But he wouldn’t hear any of it.”   


“That isn’t wh—”   


“I suppose he has no duty to forgive me, of course.”   


He stared at the ground, tucking his hands between his torso and his arms.

“I should have foreseen that.”

“But that isn’t what we’re talking about,” George reminded. “What I want to know is why you did it—or, perhaps—why you felt you  _ had  _ to do it.”   


“And what about it is so unclear?” Dhani asked, guilt chaining his feet to the ground. “I believed him to be a warlock, responsible for all of my problems, and so I tried to poison him, like the imbecile I am.”   


“Well,” the old man wheezed, shaking his head as his son drew near to him, a worried look on his face. “You certainly aren’t any imbecile; not by any stretch of the word.”

Dhani begged to differ.

“And second of all,” George continued after a pause, unsure of what to say or how to say it. “For what exactly did you blame him?”   


The young man sighed.

“The sudden appearance of the bird was the first thing,” he explained. “And from there, I suppose it gradually extended to your illness, my curse, for lack of a less inflammatory word—I’ve spoken about it at length with the Widow Lennon, actually. Both my actions and my curse.”   


“You spoke to the captain?” George asked, bewildered.

“I did, yes.”   


The old man blinked a couple of times, if only to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

“And what did she have to say? Did— did it help any?”   


“Oh, very much so,” Dhani said, nodding his head. “For as little credit as I gave her before, and for as strange as I may still find her, she is a very understanding woman. Honestly—she forgave me before anyone else.    


“Although,” he laughed sadly. “I suppose no one else has forgiven me.

“But I don’t expect to be forgiven. In fact, I doubt I ever will be. Not by his family, not by the gods… Certainly not by him.”

Leaning back, George replied, “I can’t speak for the gods, of course… And for him, I truly cannot say. It would not seem, at least in my view, that he is one of those men to forgive people easily.

“But what he is is young, and I’ll tell you something about being young—you’ve got a lot of time left, and as it goes on, and you grow older… maybe get married, have a child or two… you come to let go of certain things.”   


“Father,” Dhani sighed, exacerbated. “I tried to kill him. I’m not sure if that’s something you can just let go of.”   


“Maybe not,” the old man admitted. “But when I was his age—I believe he’s around twenty-eight now—I firmly believed that I would go on hating Madam Lennon for the rest of my natural life.

“Hell,” he laughed. “As I laid on my deathbed, should I have found myself victim to smallpox or the like, I find it not unreasonable to say it would have been her I cursed with my dying breath.

“You must understand—I absolutely  _ despised  _ her.”

“But she did not try and take your life.”   


“Oh, yes she did,” George scoffed. “Good God, have you forgotten the story of us mutineers? We dueled each other on the main deck, Dhani, and when I lost, she tried to hang me.

“Her husband had to convince her not to do it.”

The young man flushed.

“Perhaps I had forgotten about that…”   


“Regardless, my point still stands. It might come to fruition some day, once he’s as old and grey as me, that Sean forgives you in his heart. At the very least, it won’t matter to him so much anymore.”   


“And I will never know if he forgives me,” Dhani countered. “Not once I’ve returned to Madras.”   


George looked deep into his eyes.

“You’re right about that,” he said. “And in that case, the only advice I can give you is to pray for him—pray that he may find peace one day in this city.   


“But what you can know, better than anyone else, even, is that you forgive yourself. I’m not saying it will be easy for you, because it won’t be. But you’ll find at some point—I’m positive of it—that you accept what you did, and that you’ve made your peace with it.

“You don’t have to revere it as a good choice. For goodness sake, if that’s what you think, then you’ve gone too far. But the important thing is that you find peace with yourself and with the universe. 

“I like to think that if you can reach that point—where you’ve prayed about it long enough, and you’ve thought about it an awful lot, and—here’s the crucial thing—that you’ve  _ learned from it _ , that God might recognize that.

“He doesn’t want you to suffer, Dhani. That’s the very last thing He wants. So why would it ever be His divine doing that you should lacerate yourself for years on end, if only to repay your crimes?”   


The young man furrowed his brow, his throat swelling as he thought about the notion.

“Do you forgive me?” he asked suddenly, tears welling in his eyes as he turned to his father.

George frowned.

For a dreadfully long minute, he said nothing, his eyes unmoving.

But then, nodding slowly, he lifted himself up off of the bed, a task that he noticed was growing more difficult, and moved towards his son, stopping only when the boy was safe in his arms.

“I would forgive you a thousand times over,” he whispered, nostalgic as he felt Dhani’s head lean into his elbow. “Even if you had been successful in killing Sean. I would forgive you if it had been one hundred people.”

The young man held tightly onto him, and to his words as well.

He had often asked, as a boy, what his father would do if he was to grow up and do something horrible.

The actual crime had varied over the years, ranging from trivial things such as breaking his mother’s vase, to stealing mangoes from the market, as he had once seen a boy do, even to beating his future wife.

And while his memory was not so sharp in those days, he could indeed recall that there had been a time—at least once—in which he had broached the topic of murder.

It was good to know, he thought, that when push came to shove, his father stayed true to his word.

Releasing him with a sigh, returning slowly to his bed, George continued, “What I ought to ask you now is whether or not you forgive me.”   


Dhani grew confused.

“For what?”   


“I know…” the old man began. “That in the past, I may not have been so empathetic to your self-described curse. To your visions and whatnot.

“I suppose it’s been very frustrating for me to watch. And while perhaps there was a time when I believed it was out of spite or… or  _ anger  _ that you were doing such things, I realize now that it must be even more frustrating for you.”   


“You’ve not the slightest idea,” Dhani whispered, his eyes shut tight.

Seeing this, a plume of sorrow rose in the old man’s chest.

“While I know you will not be eager to admit it—and my intent here is not to upset you, but I must be honest—my time here on this Earth is running shorter and shorter.”   


He watched with pain in his eyes as his son drew in a long, deep breath.

“I have to start thinking realistically now,” George continued, struggling to get the words out without a cry. “Of what will become of you all once I’m gone.

“As I stood in that corridor, you know—as I told you at breakfast this morning—As I looked into all of those people’s eyes, seeing those men and women I had all but forgotten about… it stirred something in me.

“In soon enough time,” he said. “I’m going to be little more than a painting in Madras. I’ll be a memory in your mind, a tale to pass onto your children some day.

“But what I have to remember is that all of that rests on the notion that once I’m gone, you’ve still kept your head. I can die as a madman all I wish, but to see you as one… it breaks my heart.

“I would be a fool, then,” he concluded with a sigh. “To not make use of what little time I have left to try and help you. I want to see you break free from your visions somehow—at the very least, I want nothing more than to comfort you.

“So at Ringo’s request, admittedly, informed by his great multitude of anecdotes on the subject, I’ve decided that that’s what I’m going to do—particularly as the anniversary of my near-death approaches.”   


He looked up, finally, to his son.

“Does that sound like a good idea?” he asked.

For a long time, his face flushed pink as a peach, Dhani was quiet.

And then, his mind placing him (much to his confusion) in the midst of a sunflower field, the sun beating down in a pleasant warmth on his back as his head turned towards the sky, he let out a breath he seemed to have been holding for ages.

A faint, almost timid smile on his face, he whispered, “I’ve never heard anything more wonderful.”

It was then that the unacknowledged ghost in the room, while not disappearing, for it never could, materialized at last. 

No longer would she be a silent killer, but instead, an enemy to plot against.

There truly was nothing more wonderful.


	66. The Sky Above His Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the company celebrates the arrival of the new year.

After five days of laughing, singing, dancing, and camaraderie (between all but Dhani and Sean) the company sat down, on the very last day of the year 1740, on the first anniversary of George’s stabbing, for their very last meal together. 

It was a truly splendid spread before them, rife in what frugal decadence the Lennons could afford, an entire turkey serving as the centerpiece of the supper, accompanied by everything from roasted, unburnt potatoes to baked onions to fresh bread that Sean had so gratefully baked, having convinced Mister Hocke that his extended absence from his position was due to a severe emergency within his family, that his sister had fallen at death’s feet, escaping by a single hair.

There was wine and tea, along with enough applejack to last the entire winter, as Yoko had insisted that the travellers tried some of the regional specialty.

But the dish the company was most anxious to try—the one that caught everyone’s eyes as they periodically turned from their conversations to steal a glance at it, its golden exterior gleaming in a way reminiscent of only the sun and nothing less—was Sean’s preserved strawberry tart.

Their minds wandered every now and then, looking at it and dreaming in vivid colors of the soft, sugary fruit inside, imagining how it would taste encased in its buttery crust, and perhaps paired with a good swig of wine.

It may sound like these descriptions are an exaggeration, but allow me to dissuade any notions at once.

This tart was not any peasant’s treat, a delicacy any whore on the docks of Liverpool could make with little more than flour, butter, eggs, and fruit—it was a long-awaited comfort, a reward of sorts, for everyone (almost everyone, anyway) having kept their oath, for having kept their wits about them and made it to the end of the year, for speaking and speculating, for learning and loving.

And even to the Ever Undeserving To Even Be In The Same Room As That Magnificent Tart Young Sir Dhani Harrison, there was some excitement in the dessert. 

It had not been an easy day for him to get through, after all, his nerves fraying as the hands of the clock ticked later into the evening.

The second he had awoken that morning, even, he wanted nothing more than to hit himself over the head with _Philosophæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica_ and drop back on his pillow, unconscious for the entire day and unable to fear the sounds of breaking glass and spilling blood.

And for much of the day, in fact, he stayed in his bedchamber by himself.

But his father, even in his ailing health, took great care to watch over him, stepping inside periodically (and with Ringo’s encouragement every time) to ask the young man how he was doing, to pry open his mind and mouth, speaking to him in a gentle tone of whatever it was he wished to speak of—be that how he missed his mother, or how George had narrowly escaped the grasp of death with the aid of his bards and bearded mermen on the fantastical deck of the _Sgt. Pepper_ , or, as was unavoidably the case, how he felt as though he was too emotionally burdened to even move, a mix of fear, anger, and sadness ripping into his flesh like a hot knife through butter.

Still, the older Sir Harrison had managed to keep relatively calm, mourning with his boy over what once was at the appropriate times, praying with him that peace should fall upon both of them, and that Olivia be safe in Madras by herself, attending to and laughing with the maids in place of her husband and son, and reassuring him, each and every time, that at the end of the night he would partake, with the rest of the company, in the unbridled splendor that was to be Sean’s handmade tart, its smells filling the house as he worked on his masterpiece.

Several times, Yoko had even come into check on him, her pain resonating with his as she was told that exactly one year had passed since his father’s stabbing.

The two did not say too much, as she could sense he was in no mood to talk, but there was an unmistakable relief about him, in his voice and in his shoulders, as he sat down with someone who could fully understand the things he was going through.

It’s a strange sort of sentiment, really, but after so much time and trauma, after dreams and drownings, and after poisonings and possessions, the one thing that united the company more than anything else, rallying them like zealots at the Masada, was not their shared pain, nor their shared happiness that the bird, and all spirits it carried with it, were long behind them.

It was a blasted pastry shell filled with strawberries, raisins, and sugar, topped with melted butter for a golden brown crust.

As Sean looked around the table, deciding for himself whether his companions had finished eating or not, a slight smile grew on his face.

Downing the last of the safe-to-drink wine in his glass (which he may have had a tad too much of) he stood up, and as the company grew silent around him, he grabbed hold of the large knife set before his tart.

He was almost going to cut into it, taking little satisfaction as the metal broke the surface of the pastry.

But it was then that he saw the look on everyone’s faces, their eyes wide, supernaturally fixated, even, on his hand.

With a menacing grin on his face, he set the knife back down.

The disappointment, while completely silent, was the loudest thing Sean had ever heard.

He nearly broke his neck laughing as he took a look at Ringo’s face.

The octopus-man was looking at him as though he had caught him defiling a mare outside a shady tavern on the outskirts of town, his eyes squinted and his brow furrowed as his mouth hung open in shock, reading no emotion but absolute betrayal.

As the baker doubled over at the sight, his cheeks flushed as he giggled like a young girl, Ringo could only smile, pointing an accusatory finger towards the man as he shouted, “You monster!”  
This only made Sean laugh harder.

“You absolute monster!” Ringo continued. “What kind of soulless husk are you?”  
  
“You should see the looks on your faces,” the young man muttered through tears. “My God, it’s like I just hit you over the head with a shovel!”  
  
“Might as well have,” George scoffed.

“Like I poured brandy over the tablecloth and set it aflame!”  
  
“That would be preferable,” Macca said, only half-joking.

“It’s as though I’ve taken all of your things, locked you in this house, and watched with glee as a horde of demons appeared to criticize me!”  
  
Julian drew back, a thin smile on his face as he asked with nearly earnest doubt, “You haven’t?”

The company all got a good laugh from this, wondering vaguely whether jokes about the haunting were acceptable so soon after its passing, but none more than Sean, his sense of humor having fully returned in the advent of the bird’s disappearance… and the wine probably helped, as well.

Either way, after a full minute of him cackling like a young boy at the sight of anything mildly inappropriate, he finally regained his composure, and still smiling, picked up the knife.

The company’s eyebrows collectively raised.

Knowing that he had their full and undivided attention, the young man decided to play one last trick on them, taking a dreadfully long time as he stroked his finger vertically across the flat side of the knife, his smiled only widening as the company’s faces soured.

“For the love of God,” Yoko cried. “Will you just cut into it?”  
  
Sean sighed, and setting his knife deep into the pastry, cutting once lengthwise, once widthwise, and twice diagonally, he said, “I can’t ignore my mother’s request.”

And once every guest had received their proper slice of the tart, berries and raisins oozing from the sides, the baker finally sat down for his.

“Before we eat,” he announced, pretending to ignore the wide eyes most of the company gave him as they pulled their forks from their mouths. “Though I understand you can wait no longer, and in truth, I feel the same,”  
  
Dhani very slowly swallowed his bite of the succulent pie.

“I find it nothing, if not fitting, that we should hold a toast, or a speech, of sorts—to ourselves, to this company, to the end of the bird, and to the end of the year—if any of you are with me.”  
  
“Certainly,” Macca nodded, his fingers wrapping around his glass of applejack (which, unaccustomed to alcohol, he loathed—but Yoko had been so insistent…) as he asked, “Would you like to…”  
  
Sean raised his glass.

“To the members of this company,” he said. “That we all should never face such adversity again.”  
  
“And to our wit,” Julian added. “For having solved such mysteries.”  
  
Macca laughed. “Not to mention our persistence!”

“And our faith,” said George. “For having carried us through it all. May it carry us for many years more.”  
  
“May there be many years of peace between us,” Dhani offered, his voice unsteady. “And many years to come.”  
  
Yoko smiled, lifting her own glass of applejack into the mix.

“May skies always be blue,” she said.

Kyoko nodded.

“And may roseboxes always be filled.”

“To the eight of us!” Ringo cried.

And as the company clinked their glasses and cups, a whole bookful of names and causes rang out.

“To Ethelein Nebiyatec e’Riddidiya.”

“To John Ono Lennon.”  
  
“To Iyera Vedyavesc e’Na’atsji.”  
  
“And to her husband!”  
  
“To Rette Badinatta.”  
  
“To William Shakespeare and _The Merchant of Venice_ !”  
  
“To the Thirteen Colonies!”  
  
“To King Charles II!”  
  
“To doves!”  
  
“To pigeons!”  
  
“To dolls!”  
  
“To the gods!”

“And to all of us,” Sean concluded. “Each and every one—that we should spend our days in good health, and that we should spend our final day together doing as we were supposed to all along.”

He raised his glass one final time.

“To eat, to drink, and to be merry.”  
  


The first ship to Madras left at 8:49 in the morning on New Year’s Day, carrying on it Sirs George and Dhani Harrison.

Macca e’Na’atsji and Ringo Asmalte left on tail and tentacle for their homes in the central Atlantic at 9:04.

And Julian Lennon was welcomed as a temporary rigger aboard His Majesty’s ship the _Horsburgh_ at 10:13, serving for the three months the crew would spend on the sea from New York to Liverpool.

But before any of that, before even one of those folks could even smell the seawater, they had all gathered with their company on the pier, hauling trunks and satchels and bags behind them.

All of their things had been cleared out from the Lennons’ houses—everything from carved and carving knives, a dead man’s thirty-three journals, a young man’s guide to the world of mathematics, and a chaplain’s guide to the world of the living dead.

And all of their stomachs had been filled with porridge and fruit, a blessing, considering their fare for the next three to six months. 

They had everything in the world to be happy about, with their stomachs filled, their things packed, and the bird laid among the strawberries and roses.

But as was so often the case, seemingly present in every goodbye, it was more of a bittersweet sort of moment, standing there on the pier and awaiting the ensign of British India.

The mermen had already been set in the sea, their skin relishing in the fresh, salty water at last.

And above them stood the remaining six, an empty space a mile wide around them as the sailors and longshoremen exchanged whispers among themselves, speaking in hushed tones of witches and warlocks.

Standing there, staring out at the sea, no one was really sure what to say.

It was one thing to speak of the sky and the weight of trunks on the way there, dragging their feet through snow and dirt as they laughed and joked.

But it was another thing entirely to see the horizon in front of them, to think to themselves that after everything, their time was coming to an end.

“Perhaps it is only I,” George wheezed, breaking the silence at last. “But I find myself so inclined to look up into the sky as we wait here, as though the bird could come and swoop down at any moment.”

Yoko laughed.

“It happened once on this pier…”  
  
“But it shall never happen again,” Macca resolved. “And we know that for sure.”  
  
Sean crossed his arms, a slight frown on his face as he silently doubted the proclamation.

“There’s simply no space in the rosebox,” Kyoko said. “There wouldn’t be anywhere it could sit if it did return.”

“You forget it can fly,” Julian groaned. “God, why did he have to choose a bird as his familiar, anyway? Just so he could make us suffer some more when he came here?”  
  
Macca laughed.

“I don’t think that was it… although that would have been a wonderful question to ask him.”  
  
“His wings were to reach us,” Yoko resolved. “Because without them, he never could get to our hearts.”  
  
Dhani sat down on his trunk, his expression nearly lifeless as he thought to himself that the bird getting into his head, getting into his mind the way it did, was the worst thing that had ever happened to him.

His brow furrowed, the others’ conversation muting in his mind.

Or was it himself that dug into his own head?  
  
Recognizing that they were less than one foot apart, their heads turning as their cheeks flushed, Dhani and Sean drew back from each other.

Their eyes quickly separated, deep-set grimaces on their faces as they cursed themselves for not recognizing where they were in relation to the other.

But the young Sir Harrison did not see it so much as a curse (which the baker most certainly did) as he did an opportunity.

There was only one tension, after all, that had not be resolved.

There was only one problem that had yet to be solved.

Or at the very least, attempted to be solved.

After a moment of hesitation, still with dotted goosepimples, Dhani asked, “What do you plan on doing once your half-brother has left?”

Sean raised his eyebrows, and with a sigh, never daring to meet his would-be assassin’s eyes, answered, “You know, I’m not sure. I suppose I’ll just go back to whatever it was I was doing before.”  
  
“Working in the bakery, you mean?”  
  
He nodded. 

“And chopping firewood for myself and my mother… reading the works of John Locke if I can spare the time.”  
  
Sean paused.

“Being the highest-order public enemy, of course.”  
  
The nobleman’s cheeks flushed in shame, hearing this.

“Kyoko’s told me she’ll write to me,” the baker continued. “Tell me about her children and whatnot…”  
  
“I take it it’s good to have her back?” Dhani asked.

Sean would have laughed if anyone else had asked the question.

“Of course,” he said dryly. “My God, I’m not sure what I would have done if she had truly died.”

The younger man nodded.

“I think that was one of the most frightening things I’ve ever seen,” he sighed. “When she sat up like that…”  
  
“Then you’ve clearly never read _Leviathan_ ,” Sean scoffed.

Dhani turned to him with wide eyes.

“By Thomas Hobbes, you mean?”  
  
“Of course! The man was somehow still living in the Dark Ages in the days of William Shakespeare!”

“I’ve read it,” the young Sir Harrison protested. “And in fact, I thought the same things as you. The only things that have ever come out of a social hierarchy are ignorance and prejudice. It’s bound to happen when you give someone power over someone else.”

Sean looked the young man up and down, tracing everything from the creases of his eyes to the way his shoe buckle gleamed in the sunlight.

“And you say this as a papist?” he asked. “Are you and your mother not prescribed to the hierarchical Catholic Church?”

Dhani sighed, and with a melancholy sort of laugh answered, “I ask myself the same thing, Mister Lennon. In all honesty, it is far beyond my own knowledge what creed or religion I truly follow—just that my mother is Catholic and my father worships the many incarnations of the Indian Lord Vishnu.”  
  
Sean shifted his weight on the pier.

“But what do _you_ believe in?” he asked. “It’s all well and good if you know what they’ve _taught_ you to think, but what do you truly think about the universe?”

Dhani tilted his head a bit, his eyes squinting as he thought.

Though he had forgotten it before, the so-called warlock was an incredibly bright young man, and asked some very interesting and thought-provoking questions.

Too proud to concede an argument, after a moment of thought, the young Sir Harrison replied, “Though some may consider it some kind of heresy, I suppose what I think is that there is certainly a God—in fact, there are a great number of them. 

“And some are more important than others,” he continued. “Only in the sense that they more heavily affect the course of our lives.”  
  
“But who is included among them?” Sean pressed.

“Vishnu, of course, and Krishna, Radha, Lakshmi…. I could go on.”  
  
“And the God of the Israelites? Of Abraham? The Father of the so-called Messiah?”  
  
Dhani furrowed his brow.

“I suppose my issue with Him would be that there is so little information given in the Bible about who He is, exactly. Or maybe it’s not so much of an issue as it is an opportunity, really.

“Because when given so little context, I suppose He could be, within some Biblical framework, whoever you like—as is seen in Protestant denominations.

“Even in Catholicism, however, I believe each person has a slightly separate interpretation of God, it’s just… more cohesive—or homogenous, I suppose—than is seen in those Lutheran faiths.”

“Granted,” the baker said. “But you still haven’t answered my question. How do you see Him?”

Dhani leaned his head back, looking up towards the sky as though in search of Him.

“I hesitate, truly, to even say that I think of Him as any single person. In Christian beliefs, he seems to me to be more of an idea than anything resembling a human.

“So I suppose what I think is that He is a sort of spirit, one manifested in Lord Vishnu to send an incarnation of himself—Jesus Christ, that is—to Earth, so that he might teach us that there truly _is_ redemption in this world.

“There is mercy,” he concluded. “And where there is mercy, there is love. We, as mere humans, cannot forget that—for if we ever do forget that there are beings above us who _want_ us to succeed, who _want_ to see us happy and created us for that purpose exactly—we would send ourselves flying into an orbit around sin, our entire ideologies based on the idea that there is no mercy for our crimes, and so, if we stray but once from the path of righteousness, we are unequivocally doomed to a living hell.”  
  
He turned to Sean, humbled by his own words, and yet proud to have said them.

“Does that answer your question?” he asked.

The baker could only stare out at the sea, thinking.

He didn’t believe in God—he never had, and he never would—but what he did believe in, as nearly every human does, was mercy.

Maybe it wasn’t to the same extent as Kyoko did, and maybe it wasn’t in the same way that Dhani did, believing it to be a gift extended from a set of supernatural beings to mankind.

But there was certainly _something_ to be said about it, about being able to turn to a man who wronged you, be it yourself or someone else, and tell him in earnest that you forgave him, and that you trusted in him to do better.

Julian had said all along, the baker thought, that Sean was far too trusting of people.

And while it may have been misapplied, a misspeak, even, one thing was true.

Perhaps, in some circumstances, it was good to be trusting.

Nothing and no one could ever do what they were intended to do, after all, without the trust that they would do so.

Sean bit his lip.

Perhaps, after trusting in so many ideas, after letting go of so many flawed ones, and after learning of so many new ones, he could adopt one more.

Hearing Kyoko laugh on his side, he turned to Dhani, and with serious eyes, sighed, “I know we haven’t had the proper time to speak, or to get to know each other, or to even learn to like each other… but…should you ever wish to write to me, Sir Harri—”

“Dhani,” the younger man interrupted. 

Sean drew back.

And seeing this, Dhani flushed, elaborating, “You need not refer to me in such a formal sense. Calling me Dhani as opposed to Sir Harrison is perfectly sufficient.”

The baker gave the slightest hint of a smile, a confused (and yet relieved) look on his face as he corrected, “Know, Dhani, that you may.”

There were no watching eyes of New York Harbor on that fateful first dawn of a new year.

But what there were were the watching eyes of smiling faces, hands waving in the air as they bid _adieu_ to their loved ones, pebbles sinking in the lakes that were their stomachs as they gazed upon such remarkable faces, now fully revived with their proper joy, their proper livelihood, and their proper passion for those quaint pastimes they had each made their lives.

It wasn’t that there was no longer anything to worry about, as their were still many problems to solve, and many fights to be had, from spats between family members to fully-fledged wars of territory, of rebellion, and of independence.

But along with those battles, there was peace to be had. There was applejack to drink, there were gods to praise, there were words to read and write, and there were women to wed.

Still—even if for only a moment—it felt as though there was no better time to be alive, that the universe had perfectly aligned to create no better of a place to be standing than on that American pier, basking in the light of a new, golden morn.

As Sean watched the final ship depart, his eyes wandered over its body, tracing the delicate outline of its sides, its decks, and its masts.

When at last his gaze reached the empirical ensign of Britain, he could see the blue sky up above his head.

He was relieved to see that it was perfectly empty.


	67. Epilogue: An Addendum to Ethelein e’Riddidiya’s “Index of Land-Dweller Customs”

Let it be here recorded, in the early absence of the sun, in this, the fourth cycle of the moon, that the prophecy of the Honorable Sea Witch Ethelein Nebiyatec e’Riddidiya, first in his perseverance, and last in his worth, the so-called shame of his tribe and convent, has fully come to fruition, proving not to be without reason, as nothing in that grand tapestry is, and undeniably proving the existence of the  _ sje’inn’a’e  _ complex, as first theorized by His Magical Excellency Chaplain Dranatch Yekte of the Foryan Convent, and later expanded upon based on the writings of myself—or, as it should come to be known, the Nebiyatecan Compound.  


—Tabanni Macca e’Na’atsji


	68. Acknowledgements

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Maids, men, merfolk, and all of you who lie outside such descriptions:

It would seem our tale has come to its end.

After almost exactly three-hundred and sixty-five days since its original conception in any (unpublished) form, after two separate versions and seven months, after 280,000 words (give or take) I have to say that I feel very much the same saying goodbye to this dream I’ve built for myself as the company I’ve written into existence felt looking back, for the final time, at New York. 

Through every chapter, through every hour, and through every excerpt, however, there are a couple of very important people/entities I’d like to thank.

Maybe you think it’s silly—writing acknowledgements into your 280k word Beatles fanfiction... and you’d probably be right. 

But for all the good this story’s done me, as a writer, as a storyteller, and as a person walking through this strange little path we call life and history (not to mention as a bored idiot during quarantine) I feel it more than appropriate.

This was my first fic, after all, and along with it, the first written work I’ve fully completed and can be proud of. 

So my first thank you goes to (surprise, surprise) the beautiful, the gleaming, the golden, the radiant MonaLuisa! She may seem like a weird pick if you’ve never heard of her, but she was the one to read and review this entire story. She was actually the first one to hear about it, and saw it through nearly every version of what it was to become. Some of the things you can directly attribute to her include: the Stuart Dream, George’s soul being half-taken by Ethelein, and Yoko talking to Sean about the meaning of “Imagine”. Love you, Mona!

And the second, in what I  assure  you was a very close race, goes to the wonderful artist Cirilee! She was honestly the one that got me into this fandom, sucking me in with her graphic-novel worthy illustrated bugs, and then hammering the nail with her incredible Octopus’s Garden AU, the basis of this entire story. Though I did make a couple changes, the basic tenets remain the same—Paul is a siren, Ringo is an octopus, and Brian is the sea witch that gives people legs. I’d recommend you check out her art on tumblr if you haven’t already—she doesn’t post much Beatles stuff anymore, but it’s all still impeccably gorgeous. So to Ms. Cirilee, whoever you are, I hope you’re happy knowing you’ve birthed a writer! 

The third goes collectively to all of the sources I used for research on this—Townsends Eighteenth Century Cooking on YouTube especially (thank them for the tart) and Project Gutenberg’s eBook of King James’s Daemonologie (a very interesting thing to translate into modern English, by the way) both of which this project would have been much more difficult without. 

The fourth, of course, has to go to our boys themselves—the one (four?) the only, The Beatles! (And their wives and children and manager and Elton John and May Pang and Stuart Sut—) I feel it’s appropriate to say here that I don’t believe any of this happened to them (OBVIOUSLY) and I hope it never does. I would honestly lose my mind if the ghost of my dead manager started screaming ateveryone I loved and then asked me for fruit. 

Now before I move to the fifth—likely the most important, I just want to say:

** FRICK YOU AO3 FOR CRASHING LIKE 300 TIMES **

** FRICK YOU GOOGLE DOCS FOR QUITTING ON ME DURING THE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (I HAD TO WRITE THIS IN MY NOTES APP)  **

There we are. Now onto my favorite part.

Thank you, all 988 of you. 

From those of you who were stoked beyond belief seeing a fantasy Beatles fic, to those of you who clicked on this thinking it would be a fun little McLennon AU and ended up dissecting varying views on death, the nature of God, and John Lennon’s legacy, I thank you from the bottom of my heart to the folds of my mind. 

The suspension of disbelief is high in any fanfiction, and doubly so for any RPF, but for a Beatles fanfiction asking you to believe that the biggest band of the 1960s all joined a pirate ship, turned into the subject of a dead witch’s prophecy, in a world where magic exists—it’s off the freaking charts. 

So for all of you willing to believe, it’s you I write this for. A story is nothing without a person who believes in it. 

Specifically, however, I’d like to thank a select few individuals.

To Abigail_Smith and TheFlabbyFoursome, your (multiple!) comments kept me going when I wondered why I even bothered. 

To skyofblue_seaofgreen, whose one comment I forgot to reply to (I was still trying to figure out how to use this cursed platform) your compliment absolutely made my day, and really inspired me to keep working on the massive project I had started. 

To TheWaif476548 and the FlabbyFoursome, whose bookmarks I was admittedly pleased to find.

To the subscriber whose name is lost to the sands of time (though I have my suspicions).

And to each and every kudo-leaver, to til_death_do_us_part, antiqueliverpool, Beethoven (???) Zivh2112, TheWaif476548, cherublennon, Abigail_Smith, JamesWinston, skyofblue_seaofgreen, Elsie226, NewtBlythe, MonaLuisa, and TheFlabbyFoursome, as well as the 27 of you who shall remain nameless.

**Thank you all for everything, from the excitement of that little red email notification to the feeling of knowing you’ve made someone’s day better.**

** I couldn’t ask for any better of an audience to tell this strange, strange story to.  **

If you have any desire to say anything, speak now (or later) in the comments, or forever hold your piece. 

I’ll take basically anything, from compliments to constructive criticism, to theories and interpretation, to questions, to anything else you’d like to say to me— as long as you’re nice about it.  Things that unintentionally hurt me, that I probably take too hard—those don’t bother me none, but if you want to head down there and start spitting on me or anyone else, (which I have the utmost faith none of you will do) we’re gonna have a problem.

With all that said, I hope you’ve enjoyed the ride.

I know I have.

-KeirMoonrock 

P.S.: THANK YOU NEWTBLYTHE FOR THE SPANISH EVEN IF IT WAS KIND OF CONFUSING AND YOU WEREN’T SURE 


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